#wish i could put author's notes in between paragraphs like they did in the good old days

[ceaseless-watchers-special-girl]

this fic about how peter nureyev is basically an embodiment of the guts album is gonna be longer and more persuasive than my literal epq

[a-chuffed-floating-panda]

Rereading the lam rim chen mo (volume 1):

(Omg, I’m actually going to make an attempt at this😵‍💫-)

A personal note from me:

I once read this book during the early chapters of Aliteoth solely to get an idea of how I could portray certain characters, what I could push on more and how I could push on those certain things. Stereotypes I could create and what not. What I remember from then was that Tsongkhapa valued studying, discipline, observing and reliance on the guru.

I will be honest and say I don’t quite know how to go about this, but I will try. (I know I’ve said ‘chapter summaries,’ I do.) My first language isn’t English, it’s in fact Norwegian and I’ve decided to thoroughly challenge my brain more than needed for some reason by writing my notes on the chapters in Norwegian. I now have to translate back into English to write this. Which is fun:) maybe I’ll add a comment in between paragraphs on oddities between the translations, idk yet.

(://hi, just finished writing this, kinda simplified the chapter a little and wrote a summary/‘what I remember from this’ at the end. I am not great at writing something studious with structure, never have been, so I am starting somewhere.)

Note before I start:

What I am familiar with is the Zen, Theravada and Pure land traditions, and this is notably Vajrayana. Something that I will not be able to comprehend 100% properly regardless of how much I try and analyse things because I don’t have a teacher within the gelug tradition Tsongkhapa founded. This will be me trying to explain the concept of swimming to someone else, not having heard of the idea of swimming before now and not knowing how to swim. But I am trying anyway because I find the idea so interesting.

Including the lam rim chen mo in the gelug tradition, there are lam rims in the other traditions as well. They are commentaries on Atisha’s ‘the lamp to the path of enlightenment.’

Prologue and Chapter 1: Atisha.

The prologue opens up with salutations to Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, then Maitreya, the future Buddha, Nagarjuna and Asanga, two revitalisers of the Mahayana tradition, and then he makes his salutations to Atisha.

He asks those who know the difference between right and wrong, those who wish to make good of their life to listen to what he has to say.

His reason for composing the books is quite important and he gives examples. There are those who are dedicated to their yogic and meditative practices, but lack in their learning. Those who are well learned struggle, but to put their knowledge into practise. People who are partial in their practise, for example, if someone wishes to study the Sūtra path, they forgo the Vajrayana path, if they wish to study the vajrayana path, they forgo the sutra aspects of the teachings.

People like he mentioned the examples- dedicated yogic practitioners with no learning, those who are knowledgeable, but can’t put their knowledge into practise and those who are biased in their understanding- can not truly practice the dharma in the way that would please the ‘wise ones.’ (Bodhisattvas/enlightened individuals.)

He then explains that what Atisha wrote in his Lamp to the path of enlightenment is to integrate all of those components into one practitioner.

Shortened, these books will lead someone to Buddhahood.

(:// I don’t remember where I heard it, but I heard someone described this book to be like the bible within the gelug tradition and that they were the only books you needed to practise.)

Atisha:

The first chapter is essentially a source check for the author, to show who he is, what he has achieved and what he did to further the teachings. (“The greatness of the author”)

Tsonkhapa includes all these points on the first page of the chapter:

1. Showing the greatness of the teachings author in order to establish that it is of noble origin.

A. How he took rebirth in an excellent lineage

B. How upon that basis he gained good qualities

1. How, knowing many texts, he gained the good qualities of scriptural knowledge.

2. How, engaging in proper practise, he gained the good qualities of experiential knowledge. There are seven bullet points beneath this that go over how Atisha possessed the training in ethics, possessed the training in concentration, and how he possessed the training in wisdom. (a3, b2, c2.)

3. Having gained all those good qualities, what he did to further the teachings in India and Tibet.

I don’t know if I can include all of those points, but I’ll see if I can cover over most of it. He cites Naktso Lotsawa Tsultrim Gyelwa’s work, a translator and student of Atisha, “Eighty verses of praise” throughout this entire chapter, some verses are even answers to certain points. I don’t have access to this work. Some of them can be quite long, as well, so I think I’ll add it if it’s short and add the long version at the end. I’m mainly using volume one of this book as a source for this, but I will also be using some other sources if I need to fill in some gaps and videos where Geshe Lobsang Yonten talks to see if I’m understanding correctly.

————————————————————————

Atisha has gone by multiple names, Candragarbha, Dipamkarasrijñana and Jñanaguhyavajra/Jñanavajra, but I will refer to him by Atisha.

1A: Tsongkhapa cites a verse of Naktso.

Atisha was born into the royal family in Zahor, (Bengal) as the second of three of King Kalyanasri and Queen Sriprabha. Atisha experienced visions of Tara from an early age and was blessed by her from early childhood.

B1-2: Tsongkhapa cites a verse of Naktso.

“At the age of twenty one,

He had mastered the sixty four arts,

All forms of craft,

The Sanskrit language,

And all philosophy.”

Atisha had aready become a knowledgeable scholar by the time he was twenty one, studying topics common to Buddhists and non-Buddhists and the four other topics he had studied since he was ten: grammar, logic, crafts and medicine. This basically means that he studied all the different areas of knowledge that one could study in India at that time, as mentioned in the verse above.

When he was fifteen, he heard the teachings on the “Drop of reasoning” once and successfully debated and won against a very famous non-Buddhist scholar, something that spread his fame everywhere. (Drolungpa is the source for this incident.)

After this, he received a complete initiation into the black mountain temple by Guru Rahulagupta and experienced visions of Hevajra and received prophesies from the dakinis. It is during this training that Atisha was given the secret name Jñanaguhyavajra. Atisha continued training in the Vajrayana until he reached the age of twenty nine with many gurus who had already achieved forms of spiritual attainments, becoming skilled in all tantric texts and its instructions. It was during a small moment where he let his pride get the better of him, believing that he alone was skilled in the mantra vehicle. This pride of his was later subdued in a dream by dakinis that showed him how much he had not seen before and that what he knew in reality was minuscule. (If I simplify this to the extreme, boy thought he knew something, boy still knew, just not as much as he thought.)

With the urging of his gurus and chosen deities, in person and in his dreams, urged him to become a monk, saying it would benefit the teaching and many other beings, he eventually did. Atisha received his predation from a Mahasamghika elder, an upholder of the Silaraksita texts of discipline. A verse of Naktso is cited here. “Your abbot was renowned by all as having attained the path of preparation.” During his ordination he was given the name Sri Dipamkarajñana.

Atisha continued to train in the lower and higher philosophical scriptures until he was thirty one. At Otantapuri(viahara/temple) he heard teachings from guru Dharmaraksita (the author of the lojong) for twelve years on the “Great detailed explanation” Atisha eventually became so skilled in the texts of the four schools that he learned, down to the smallest details, what behaviour he should adopt and what should be avoided in rules of the monastic discipline concerning the act of how to give and receive food. It was through his knowledge and studies of other schools that he learned all the key points of the scriptural teaching.

The answer to how he gained good qualities of experimental knowledge is quite short, scriptures and their commentaries praise often how the training in ethical discipline is the basis for all good qualities. Because of this, you need the good qualities of knowledge at the very start of the training in ethical discipline.

A1-3: that Atisha possessed the training in ethics is explained in relation to three aspects. 1. The superior vow of liberation, 2. The bodhisattva vow and 3. The vows to the vajrayana.

Tsongkhapa cites a verse of Naktso.

Atisha was willing to risk his life to guard every minor and major fundamental training he was committed to after receiving the complete vows of a monk. Therefore, like said it Naktso’s verse, Atisha is like an elder who was an upholder of discipline texts.

Naktso verse.

As said, he trained under many instructions for developing the spirit of enlightenment which has its roots in love and compassion. Under Ser-ling-pa’s(Dharmakīrtiśrī) guidance, he trained for a long time in supreme instructions that were transmitted from Maitreya and Manjughosa to Asanga and Santideva.

Naktso verse:

“The one who set aside his own interest and took up the burden of others is my guru [Atisha]”

The spirit of enlightenment arose in his heart and he continued to learn the practises expected of his promise to train in the bodhisattva deeds.

Naktso verse.

Naktso praises Atisha, calling him a chief of yogis because he reached the concentration of the stage of generation in which he saw his body as divine, and concentration at the stage of completion, where he attained a vajra state of mind. Because of his respect to honour the pledges of the tantric rules, Naktso verse says.

Atisha was courageous in his wish to keep his promises to guard the ethical discipline and not transgressing the rules and promising to train in the ethical discipline of the three vows. Should he have made a mistake and transgressed, he would immediately purify the infraction with the appropriate rite for restoring the mistake.

His mind became serviceable by means of meditative serenity. At this stage, having practiced between three-six years, he reached a stable stage of generation and upon hearing the secret tantric songs sung by the dakinis in Oddiyana, he memorised them on the first attempt. His common training in wisdom came from a concentration of insight that stemmed from a union of meditative serenity and insight. His uncommon training in wisdom came from a special concentration stage of completion. Naktso verse.

“It is clear that you achieved the path of preparation in accordance with the texts of the mantra vehicle.”

Now, what did he do in India? Coming back to India after studying with Serlingpa, Atisha upheld the teachings at Bodhgaya three times by debating and winning against three non-Buddhist philosophers. He continued to further the teachings in India by establishing institutions wherever he traveled and would immediately reform misinformed practises whenever he saw them. It is from this, that he was revered as a “crown jewel.”

Naktso verse.

Naktso verse.

What he did in Tibet. The dharma had already been introduced in Tibet centuries prior by Guru Padmasambhava (Nyingma founder) the dharma suffered during the reign of King Langdarma who had made great effort to repress it. King Yeshe Ö and Jangchub Ö sent two translators to India, one of these being Naktso himself, to invite him to Tibet to purify the teaching and help clarify the confusion that had occurred during the suppression period. Atisha made the journey toward Tibet, meeting two other known translators, Marpa and Rinchen Zangpo on their way there, arriving in Ngari after two years.

It’s during this time as he taught, he composed the “Lamp to the path to enlightenment” that brought together all the stages of practise and condensed the key points of the sutra and mantra vehicles. He taught the instructions for this text to all the students he taught while travelling and as a result of this, he re-established the dharma and the system that had disappeared, only slightly reinvigorated what had remained and removed corruption based on misconceptions.

In the later years as the teachings spread through Tibet, there were those who thought of themselves as scholars and yogis who ended up misconstruing the meaning of the collection of Tantra. This belief caused damage to the ethical discipline, the root of the teachings. Atisha refuted them all and caused their wrongful conceptions to disappear, giving room for the flawless teaching to grow. This is how his kindness reached all the people in Tibet.

Tsongkhapa goes on to list the ideal qualifications for an author of a text that explains the Buddhas intent in this way. 1. They have mastered the five topics of knowledge. 2. They have the instructions to practise in the topics of Buddhism knowledge that has been transmitted from excellent beings from the Buddha in an unbroken lineage. 3 have received permission to write the text from their chosen deity. Atisha has all of these three qualities.

1. Naktso verse.

Atisha had knowledge from many lineages through all the gurus he learned from, twelve of whom had achieved spiritual attainments. He who had hundreds of students in India, Kashmir, Oddiyana, Nepal and Tibet, was therefore someone who was able to determine the intent of the Buddha. Dromdönba, his main disciple, someone prophesied by Tara, was the one to further Atisha’s lineage and established the kadam tradition.

All of this, as Tsongkhapa says, is the greatness of the author.

————————————————————————

After reading summary/what I have retained from reading this/no looking at my notes unless they’re long words:

I had to search up some other sources to fill in the gaps, since there wasn’t anything mentioned about his childhood. I got Buddha parallels from him from the get go, that didn’t subdue when I read that he prostrated in front of the venerable objects at eighteen months old and thanked his parents for their compassion that gave him his life. (That reminded me of Guru Padmasambhava who was born out of a lotus flower at eight years already talking like an adult.)

After I learned that he experienced vision of Tara, I kind of figured out he was always meant to be a monk. He was an extremely knowledgeable individual who always sought to learn, attain enlightenment and teach others, eventually becoming one of the highest masters regarding bodhicitta at Vikramashila when Naktso arrived asking for him to come back to Tibet and purify the teachings.

He had a vision of the black mountain temple which led him to study there somewhere in his twenties, eventually ordaining under a mahasamghika elder to become a monk, and studied under multiple other teachers, some who had already achieved spiritual attainments.

Mahasamghika= this doesn’t exist anymore, but from my understanding of what I found, this is an ‘early” branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism

The dakinis that subdued his pride in a dream. This is something I will admit to laughing at while I imagined it. It’s essentially like this, he is in a dream where boundless of texts on tantra floats around him and the dakinis flying around him carrying texts containing tantra he doesn’t know saying “do you know this?”

“No.”

“Then what about this?”

No.”

“This then?”

“No.” And in the distance, he sees small amounts of texts that he does know and the dakinis then say, that doesn’t compare to what is in their world. Something that successfully subdued his pride.

Even with a subdued pride, he was eager to attain his fullest potential. His teacher then essentially said, “hey, I know, but calm down.” It was after this he learned about who held the complete teachings on how to develop a bodhichitta. Which was Serlingpa.

It completely escaped my knowledge that, while reading, Serlingpa (Dharmakīrtiśrī) didn’t live in India, but all the way down in the region where modern day Sumatra is. Atisha later traveled down there to learn from him. It was here during his twelve year stay that he learned the instructions transmitted from Maitreya, Manjughosa and Asanga to Santideva.

A source said that Atisha didn’t approach Serlingpa during the first two weeks after his arrival, and spent it instead with the monks that were students of his and prodded at them for information on him.

Atisha returned to India, this is where he upheld the teachings at Bodhgaya by debating and winning against no-Buddhist scholars and established institutions wherever he went and corrected wrong practises whenever he saw them. He eventually became an abbot of Vikramashila at some point and as he got older, the monks of Tibet arrived multiple times, asking for him to come with them, an invitation from the king.

Another source said that the monks from Tibet weren’t all that liked by the other monks there, and the other abbot of Vikramashila was hesitant to allow him to leave because he was the best they had on the bodhichitta teachings and without him there, they believed the teachings wouldn’t survive.

Atisha goes with the monks to Tibet, promising the abbot that he would return after three years. While on their way there, they lose their translator, they stop by Nepal and stumbled into Marpa who couldn’t come with them, they later stumbled into Rinchen Zangpo, who also couldn’t come with them. Atisha relies on Naktso’s limited Sanskrit for the rest of their way.

They arrive at Ngari and he begins teaching. He saw how dedicated they were, but they didn’t know how to apply their knowledge into answers when he asked them questions. The composition of the “Lamp to the path to enlightenment” was written during this time, with the all the points of the sutra and mantra vehicles and all the stages to the practise.

Atisha did try to leave back for India when the three years had passed, but he was prevented from doing so because of a war in the area so he sent a letter to the abbot instead asking if he could stay in Tibet until he died.

Atisha purified and explained the teachings to those who had become confused during the period of suppression. To what little practice remained, he only refined a little, and by the time of his death, he had completely re-established the system and practise in Tibet that had disappeared.

There, got down most I think. I can remember much more important.

(This was fun and so interesting, but this is such a studious book to read and I suck and writing anything remotely structured so it’s a bit everywhere😵‍💫 My brain feels fried and like soup at the same time😵‍💫😵‍💫

14/11/2024: The other sources I read to fill in the gaps for Atisha’s life:

Kagyu monlam

Dakinitranslations (didn’t use it as much, but I did look at it)

Studybuddhism)

[alice-and-ethel]

I am currently reading And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by John Meacham as a follow-up to the excellent American Rebels by Nina Sankovich (highly recommended btw!) in an attempt NOT to wallow in fear and despair ahead of the November election. I chose it less as a biography and more as an inspirational book about defending America’s ideals despite sociopolitical turmoil.

That said, it’s still written as a biography—though one rather sparse on details despite various primary source quotes so far—and that brings me to…

“Abraham was nine when she [his mother Nancy] died. His recollections of her were sparse, his ambivalence about her deep. Once she was gone she was unable to provide her son with love or with security. In memory, she was a source of insecurity and embarrassment as Lincoln absorbed the stories of her illegitimacy and of the allegations about her, or certainly her family’s, promiscuity. When he needed her as he grew up, he could not have her. Later in life, when he did not want her…he could not avoid stories about her.”

No, really: I went to the end notes and found…nothing for this paragraph.

“Mrs. Lincoln was...affectionate... [She] always taught Abe goodness, kindness...taught him sweetness and benevolence as well.” Dennis Hanks (Nancy’s nephew)

“She was beyond all doubts an intellectual woman, rather extraordinary if anything. Abraham was like his mother very much.” John Hanks (Nancy’s cousin)

“She was a brilliant woman—a woman of great good sense and Modesty.” Nathaniel Grigsby (a neighbor, brother of Aaron Grigsby, Nancy’s son-in-law)

You have no idea how badly I wish I still had a copy of David Reynolds’ Abe handy right now. I would pull out Burlingame’s Volume I, which I do own…but I couldn’t get very far into that one, either (despite the fact that it’s acclaimed) because it’s full of this same kind of gossipy, and frankly sexist, speculation about Lincoln’s parents, specifically about his mother and the Hanks family. (It goes on for way too long in that book.) Meacham repeats a contemporary-ish rumor that Lincoln was illegitimate because his mother slept with another man before her marriage to his father…but even if that story was true, Abraham was the Lincolns’ second child, born two and a half years after their marriage.

More to the point, though: until now, I’ve never seen a biographer suggest that Lincoln—despite being rather closed-mouthed about his childhood—was “insecure” about his mother, much less that he felt “ambivalent” towards her memory or that he barely remembered her. (By this author’s own admission, Lincoln had a remarkable memory from childhood. I know nine is young, but it’s not that young, particularly when discussing a child who could recite entire sermons verbatim after hearing them just once!) Nancy’s death deeply affected him. She may have taught him to read and was definitely the more affectionate and gentle of his two parents. Far from slandering her as a “loose” woman, people who actually knew her remembered her for her intelligence and her kindness—and for the similarities between her and her son.

Lincoln loved his stepmother Sarah like another mother, and he might have been embarrassed by Nancy’s illegitimacy (though he attributed his own intellect to her Virginia planter father). He may or may not have ever said “all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to my [angel] mother,” either. But I’m willing to put money on him not being ambivalent about her or ashamed of her. He was devastated by the loss of her, and her death was followed by a period of extreme hardship for Sarah and Abraham before Thomas Lincoln remarried—so it’s really no wonder he was reluctant to talk about that time later in life.

[moveslikeanape]

hey! it's been a few days again, since i still had a lot going on irl, but i'm the 🌟 anon--i thought i might as well come off anon since we've already been talking quite a bit through asks (which i didn't expect when i sent my first message haha, not that i'm complaining though). i hope you're doing well.

i agree heavily with what you said in your second paragraph. i don't know if you heard about this, but mark henn retired from disney last month, and he said on a podcast that he would've liked to stay until his 45th or 50th anniversary but ultimately his work just didn't feel meaningful anymore. and even though as i mentioned, i did enjoy encanto, i'm not really surprised. i think it says a lot about the quality of things lately that someone who worked for WDAS since 1980 and did so much important work for them would feel this way.

as for wish's songs, and specifically "at all costs", i read an interview with the songwriter the other day where she stated that she wanted that song to sound like a love song that could be played at a wedding, or a lullaby you could sing to your kids, so that when you see the movie and learn the actual context you're surprised by it. i suppose i can't say she didn't achieve her goal, but that's so far away from the purpose that songs in disney movies are supposed to serve! it just tells me that unlike phil collins or elton john, who wanted to write disney music, julia michaels just wanted to do her own thing and throw it into a disney movie whether it really worked or not.

some of the "art of" books are pretty detailed and have what i feel is a decent balance between production info and art, but others not so much... i've mostly enjoyed reading the ones i own for specifically disney movies, but the pixar art books i own tend to be very heavy on art and light on any other information. the hercules one is strange, though, because the author doesn't put much of his own writing into it, instead presenting the majority of the information by directly quoting the filmmakers, which makes it an awkward read. there are also comedic asides from the characters presented alongside lineart of them--for example, one page shows a reproduction of notes taken by one of the filmmakers, and below that is art of phil looking annoyed with text beside him that says "phil: yeesh, it's all greek to me! how am i supposed to read this chicken scratch?!". i've never seen anything like that in these kinds of books before. i did finish the art of animation book, though, and it was great! around 60 or so pages of it were dedicated entirely to the making of hercules and there were a lot of things in it that i didn't know.

to keep things on topic for your blog, i'd love to know your thoughts on the tarzan broadway show if you have any you'd like to share! i've always been a fan of broadway musicals but i don't know much about the tarzan one, other than that i remember hearing that terk was changed into a male character. which is interesting, because she was originally supposed to be a boy in the movie, wasn't she? also not the first time that's happened in a disney broadway musical, with the lion king again being an example here because of rafiki.

Hey, nice to meet you! I hope you don't mind that I followed you from my personal blog. And no worries, I completely understand life being busy… there never seems to be enough hours in the day. I'm doing well, thank you. Hope you are too!

I'd heard Mark Henn had retired, but I never heard what he said on the podcast! That's such a shame. It's hard enough watching this happen as a fan, I can't imagine being in his position.

Wow, that's completely insane about "at all costs". I'd probably be more confused than surprised, and even if I were surprised it wouldn't be a good one. And on top of that and the fact they're supposed to be written for the movie, they shouldn't be written with the intention that people would hear them before they see the movie… to me that seems like they truly did want them played on the radio, and have people want to see the movie to see what they songs about. I agree with you it seems like she just wanted to do her own thing, and also that she wants to deceive and trick her audience.

That's such a shame the Pixar books are like that. It definitely is nicer to have more info on the making of the movies. The Atlantis one is technically an "illustrated script", with a few notes here and there. Lots of great artwork, but I wish it went more in depth, especially about the Atlantean culture and language. I didn't know they did those comedic asides in the Hercules book! I've had it for years, but never actually gotten around to reading through it (really need to find some time to read through these books!) I'm glad you enjoyed the art of animation book though, and that you got to learn some new things about it!

As to the Tarzan Broadway show… I've been kicking myself for almost 20 years that I never saw it! I was in Albany on a trip during the Broadway run, but didn't have the time to make a quick side trip to see it, and been regretting it ever since. I also missed out on the production in Tuacahn, Utah last year (Josh Strickland reprised his role as Tarzan!) because I'd made a very big purchase around the time it was announced, and sadly couldn't afford to go. I did see a bootleg recording of it once, but it was so long ago I don't really remember it. Will have to rewatch it someday.

I know there were somethings that needed tweaking, but I'm not sure what could have saved it in North America. I know it's very popular in Germany (it's actually currently playing in Hamburg). Most of my experience with it is the album. I do love the new songs, especially Kerchak's "No Other Way" and Jane's "Waiting For This Moment". But my favourite has to be "Everything That I Am", when Tarzan learns about his human parents. If you only listen to one song from the broadway, I highly recommend it. The OCR has the one in the broadway sung by Josh Strickland, plus another version at the end of the album sung by Phil Collins.

One thing that's always bothered me is the song "For The First Time", a duet between Tarzan and Jane. It's basically Jane and Tarzan working through what they feel about each other and if it's reciprocated. There's nothing wrong with the song itself, I actually do love the song, it's just the subject and it's place in the musical. It comes after Strangers Like Me. In addition to the lyrics "Every gesture, every move that she makes…" etc from Tarzan, there's a new section in the song sung by Jane:

"I can't explain the way I feel Everything I wanted’s here And my heart is beating faster Every moment I’m with him I feel so complete I cannot deny what I’m feeling"

Which is sung to the same tune as "For The First Time". To me, that makes FTFT feel like going around in circles, it's basically an entire song to say what's just been said. I've always thought it would have been better to have a song where they both torn about what to do, a should I stay or should I go? song.

As for Terk, I've never read anything on why they decided to change her back into a guy. I remember thinking about Rafiki back when I first found out about Terk, they just can't keep their monkeys (apes) straight! I'll have to see if I can find out anything about that.

[oogaboogasphincter]

The 50/10 Method (Agent Whiskey x f!reader)

Summary: Jack makes the most of your 10 minute study break. 

Word Count: 2.7k+

Rating: E (explicit) 18+ ONLY! bc this is just cringey smut lmfao

Warnings: smut (oral (f receiving), unprotected p in v sex (obvi use protection irl), very easily and conveniently reached orgasms (this is a fantasy i can do what i want skjfkd), dirty talk, one (1) allusion to thigh riding and one (1) instance of 💙spitting💙, fingering, positions i hope i've given enough detail so y’all can imagine what i was picturing💀), pet names (sweetheart, honey, cowboy *affectionately*, good girl, baby), there’s a sentence about reader having long-ish hair, reader and jack have a dog, swearing, reader is afab and is called things like good girl and the like, just overall trash grammar and structure 😇

Author’s Note: so this is very poorly written and extremely self-indulgent, as i myself use the 50/10 method 🙃. but i had a lot of fun with it, and i think that’s what writing is supposed to be all about! :) also i was heavily inspired to write this after reading “Take a Break” by @mellowswriting​ and “Study Buddy” by @pascalpanic��. please go check those out because they’re absolutely fantastic!!!!! +while you’re at it, i would highly advise you to read anything on their masterlists bc they’re just 💜exquisite💜

gif by @thernandalorian​

The lines of text on your computer screen are starting to blend into each other, creating a single run-on sentence that one of your previous English teachers would ridicule the author for. The sharp curves and angles that distinguish each letter from the next are becoming soft and dull, blurring into each other until your brain can only recognize it as a smeared streak of black on white.

It’s 11:00am on a Saturday, a big exam set for the upcoming Monday’s morning. You don’t feel rushed for time, or overloaded with unknown material, and the early hours of the day have been quite productive. Following a shared breakfast of homemade waffles in bed with Jack, your boyfriend, you didn’t complain when setting up your study station on the living room’s large oak table. If anything, you had been excited to begin studying early in the hopes of finishing your review by the end of the day. That way, tomorrow would be free for you and Jack to do whatever you pleased.

However, as the hours went by, your motivation was slowly but surely diminishing. The serene study atmosphere that you usually thrive in is now driving you mad. You yearn for a noise, any noise; a bird to sing a song in the tree outside your window, the smack of your dog’s loose wrinkles against each other as he attempts to shake the sleep out of him, a pencil unable to stop itself from rolling and dropping onto the floor with a tink.

You’re momentarily gifted with the crisp sound of a page turning. You flit your eyes over to gaze upon the source of your granted wish and your heart flutters in reaction to the sight: Jack’s resting on the couch, cowboy hat balanced on the back of it, deeply absorbed in the next installment of his favorite murder-mystery series. You find it curious that his desire for an adrenaline-filled challenge doesn’t stop when he comes home from mission after mission that nearly cost him his life. You’ll ask him about his insatiability one day, but for now you categorize it as fictional research for his Statesman assignments.

Your short glance quickly turns into an entranced stare. Jack looks... divine. Fetching. Luscious. As he’s lying on his back, neck propped up against the arm of the couch, his book balanced on his chest, relaxation radiates off of him in waves and utterly seduces you. You’re surprised that he hasn’t been a greater distraction to you throughout the morning. How have you managed to ignore the denim-wearin’, plaid-shirted, pornstache-sportin’ cowboy of your dreams that is only a few steps away?

Involuntarily, the thigh muscles of your crossed legs contract in an effort to bring some semblance of friction to your now weeping core. Similar to your imaginings of your dog earlier, you shake your head to force these heavy, unwanted feelings to dissipate and turn back to the work in front of you. Of course, Jack does the opposite of what you’d like him to do and takes an interest in your fidgeting. He peeks over the top of his book, “You cold, sweetheart?” 

His question is reasonable: you’re purposely wearing a skirt that’s so short it rides up quite high when you sit. You don’t dare to meet his eyes and answer while pulling a textbook close and opening it up, “No, I’m okay.”

Fortunately he returns to his reading. Your attention is able to retain itself for about a paragraph, but then your mind takes a sharp detour back to those pesky, steamy desires. You mentally huff at your inability to remain concentrated on your studies and rifle through the options of what you can do to satiate yourself for the time being. 

You could switch texts and force your brain to recognize the change and therefore become distracted. You could pick out some colored writing utensils and bring some fun to active reading. You could say fuck it, go straddle Jack and beg him to use you in whichever way he would like.

Jack interrupts your brainstorming, “Are you sure you don’t need a blanket or sumthin’? I can go get my jacket for ya.” 

The attentiveness of your southern lover melts your heart. You turn to him, “No, really, I’m okay, thanks.”

“I wouldn’t count a bathroom break as taking away from your 50 minutes, honey, if that’s what’s makin’ you twitch.” 

You had been implementing and strictly adhering to the 50/10 method all morning: study for 50 minutes, take a break for ten. Its effectiveness was never doubted, as it has proven to work for you for years. Only ten minutes into this 50 minute period, the devil of restlessness pokes at you and makes you think could time go by any slower? A hand comes up to cover the blush creeping across your cheek as you dismiss Jack’s suggestion, “No, that’s not it.”

Behind your embarrassed hand, Jack cocks an eyebrow at you. Your simple choice of words has given the Agent a hint, that there is something that’s bothering you, he just hasn’t figured it out yet and you don’t want to admit what it is for some reason. He returns to his book, however lost in thought about what your problem could be, while you task every cell in your body to pay attention to your studies. 

35 minutes remain on the clock, and Jack guesses, “Did you have too much coffee?”

You can’t help but grin at his sleuthing, “No, I just had my regular.”

He conjures up another possible solution five minutes later, “Are you itchin’ to get out of the house? We haven’t left in two days.”

He’s getting warmer. Both of you know exactly why you haven’t left the house in two days: you’d been occupied with activities of the sinful variety. You can’t gauge yet whether or not he knows he’s dancing around the answer, “Baby, you’re distracting me. And nope, it’s not that.” 

He smiles apologetically, “Sorry,” and uses his book as a partition, blocking your ability to procrastinate and just visually drool all over him.

Silence fills the next 20 minutes. Even though Jack is out of your sight, details from your observations exaggerate themselves in your mind to the point that they’re all encompassing, intoxicating. The way his jeans wrap around his legs ever so perfectly, the worn denim hugging those muscular thighs that he loves for you to grind yourself against when you’re feeling especially desperate (like now). How his plaid flannel slopes over the swell of his belly, stretching tight against his skin as his diaphragm contracts and deflating when he exhales. Even his large feet, strewn about lazily on the couch, his toes pointing in different directions, amuse you. 

Ten minutes remain in your study session. Feeling guilty about spending the majority of the last hour envisioning the seductive intricacies of your boyfriend, you actually start to study. 

“How many times do you think I can make you cum in ten minutes?”

Your eyes are ripped from your material and land on the menace lazing on the couch. He’s put his book down, one arm behind his head while the other is crooked, allowing himself to palm his cock through his pants. Jack’s wearing a shit-eating grin, bewitching your crossed legs to switch which one is on top; an excuse to apply more pressure to the yearning area between them. You fidget in the chair, shamefully trying to get the seam of your underwear to rub against you in just the right way. You shrug, “I-I’m not sure.”

He gets up and comes over to you, standing behind you and leaning forward to rest his chin on your shoulder. He murmurs in your ear, “I think we should find out during your next break.”

You turn to face him, “I think so too.”

He gives you a quick kiss, “Well, you better be a good girl and study for these last few minutes. Earn that break.” He places his large hands on either side of your head and turns it toward your materials, making you both laugh.

Somehow, you’re able to pay attention. Jack’s impending promise of ravaging you for ten minutes straight quells your jittering nerves and gives you something specific to look forward to. Before you know it, your alarm is beeping, alerting you that your break has commenced. Jack cages you by reaching forward and grabs the clock, programs it to ten minutes and keeps it in his hand. He grips the sides of your swivel chair, pulls it back from the table and spins you around to face him, the speed of the turn making your hair swoosh across your shoulders. Through mutual giggles, Jack lifts you up, winding your legs around his waist, your arms doing the same around his neck. “I want you to count for me how many times you cum.”

Breathlessly, you simply obey, “Okay.”

He practically runs to the bedroom. He sets the clock on the nightstand and turns the face towards the mattress so you don’t lose out on studying time. Tossing you onto the bed, your giggling continues as you bounce from the force. Jack hooks his fingers in your underwear and yanks them down, pulling them out from under your skirt and over your shoes. The way he wastes no time ridding you of any other garment makes blood and heat flood your center and air rush out of your lungs. He pushes your lost air back into your mouth with a kiss and then immediately retreats back to in between your legs.

He flicks the fabric of your skirt up onto your belly, letting himself have complete, unobstructed access to his early lunch. His fingers fondle your folds while his lips place sloppy kisses along the inside of your thighs. After he’s had his fill of that step, he sits back and stares at you: spread out for him, more than willing to take anything he wants to give to you. He blows out a whistle, eyeing your core, and you say, “Hey, you’re on the clock, cowboy. No time for dramatics.”

He nods, a smirk pulling at one side of his mouth, “You’re right, sweetheart.”

He spits onto your cunt, forgoing his usual gentle licks to adequately wet your pussy. A quiet fuck escapes your mouth as he plunges his tongue into you. Your fingers wind themselves in his chocolatey locks and pull, extracting an excited moan from your lover. His fingers knead the soft flesh on the backs of your thighs as he eats and when his mustache starts to tickle your clit, you’re done for. Your grip on his hair becomes vice-like and your whole body seizes up, constricted by enrapturing pleasure. You strangle out, “One.”

Jack unlatches his mouth only once he’s certain your first orgasm is complete. He stands, admires your wrecked expression, takes his cock out, spits into his hand and pumps his dick a few times. Hands slithering around your waist, he flips you onto your stomach and pulls your ass up, positioning you on your hands and knees. You’re a little bit dizzied by his manhandling in combination with his expert tongue, but this type of vertigo is the most enjoyable you’ve ever experienced. 

When he pushes into you, it’s a bit of a stretch because he hadn’t warmed you up with his fingers. He relaxes you by leaning forward, pressing his chest against your back and peppering soft kisses to your shoulder blades. The clink of his belt comically punctuates his thrusts, but your laughs are swallowed by intoxicated groans. You don’t know, and you don’t really care to figure out, how he already has you teetering on the edge of cumming again. Heightened senses tell you that you’re close; the fabric of his shirt feels unearthly soft as it brushes against patches of exposed skin, his fingertips are delightful lead in their clamp on you, his grunts and pants angelically reverberate in your skull. And then, suddenly and all at once, “Two.”

Jack’s pride shows itself in a smirk while he flips you onto your back. He makes a show of hooking your calves over his shoulders, eliciting laughter from the both of you. Resting almost all of his weight on top of you, your knees find your chest and his hands find your hair. The intimacy of it all is almost too much; his thumbs stroke your temples, palms cradle your head, those goddamned puppy-dog eyes bore into you. You turn your head in his grasp to check your timing: five minutes left. 

Jack’s tongue darts out to lick the pads of his fingers before he snakes it down in between the two of you to rub your clit. Your moans come out uncontrollably, your eyelids stutter and he eggs you on, “That’s it, sweetheart. Give me another one.”

Hearty moans are reduced to desperate gasps and you’re unable to verbally acknowledge the third orgasm that rips through you. Nonetheless, Jack can tell from the way your eyes roll into the back of your head and his name tumbles ferociously out of your mouth that you’re cumming. “’Atta girl.”

Jack takes his cock out of you and the whine that escapes your lips embarrasses you. He can’t help but laugh at your whimpering before he scoots down the bed and starts to eat you out again, framing his head with your quaking thighs. You find the strength to check the time, “Jack, there’s only a minute and a half left.”

He moans deeply into you, unaffected by your comment, and eases three fingers into your fluttering center. Like earlier, your hands fly to his hair like a magnet and find purchase so tight it makes your knuckles go pale. In a matter of seconds, circling your clit with his sopping tongue and tapping your g-spot with his deft fingers, Jack has you cumming yet again. This time you yell out the count, “Four!”

The sounds his ministrations make are lewd and exhilarating, pushing himself to his own precipice. You look down your body to find Jack’s other hand jerking his cock and his seed spilling out of him moments later. He groans into your pussy while you pet his hair, praising him for his efforts. 

Simultaneously, you both remember that you’re being timed. Your eyes meet the clock at the same time: 30 seconds. Jack springs from the bed and pulls you up with him, grabbing your discarded panties. He squats and taps your ankles so you lift your legs up, sliding each leg hole over your body and pulling your underwear up underneath your skirt. 

You fumble with his mussed clothes, stuffing his still-hard cock into his boxers, hiking his jeans up over his ass and zip and button them closed. You snake his belt around his waist and let his fingers do the work of buckling it before he picks you up bridal style and ushers you out of the bedroom, grabbing the clock off of the nightstand on your way out. 

Unhinged cackles follow you two down the hallway as you return to the living room. He plops you down in your chair, straightens you out, gives you a kiss on the cheek and then your alarm goes off. You raise your eyebrows at him, “Jeez, you didn’t waste a second.” 

He hums, then mumbles, “You get back to work now, babygirl,” and leaves you with a yearning kiss on the part of your hair.

Both of you return to your respective readings, hopelessly trying to downgrade your panting gasps to normal breaths. The absence of Jack’s warmth is already painful. But you rationalize that the indulgence of the last ten minutes is more than enough to get you through this next hour of studying, if not for longer.

Little do you know that Jack feels the same pain. His ache for your touch, sexual or not, will overtake him later and he’ll be unable to resist the temptation of coming over and distracting you again. Determined to finish your studying, you’ll propose a compromise: you can sit in his lap while he is lulled to sleep by the ambience of the afternoon rain and the enveloping comfort of you. The two of you can try to beat the record of four orgasms next semester. 

💘taglist: @pascalpanic​, @mellowswriting​

[horrorslashergirl]

The Collector finding and collecting his childhood friend because she was the only one who was kind to him as a kid.

The Collector x Reader- The memories that persist

Authors Note: Another Collector one? Well yes, because I have many requests with him, so gotta work on them.

Warning: Just some good ol’ kidnapping

Words: 1.8k

Asa had two moods that put people at distance, being socially awkward and having a stone-cold exterior were like protection, like a scorpions needle ready to pierce whatever got close to him. He never found the need to have friends or bond with another human being, for his opinion on humans and the society were that there are either predators or prey and he sure as hell wasn't the second.

The idea of someone being nice meant they wanted something, people don't do charity, there is always a secret reason for every action, be it good or bad.

He somehow had to thank his father for this unique education that he got until he was alone; it made him the man that he is today, untouchable. 

Asa was waiting patiently in front of the coffee machine in the hallway of the university, he needed the caffeine after a night of no sleep and working on his collection; sleep was a luxury he couldn't afford, not when there was so much to do.

Usually, the hallways were filled with professors and students, chatting and discussing, but when he was near, people preferred to keep the distance and find another place for conversation. Maybe it was the way his black eyes would take glances at them and create an uncomfortable vibe without even trying.

Some of the more daring staffs of the university sometimes joked on Asa that he was close to forty and he should consider settling down, an aspect the Entomologist never thought about.

Now, he wasn't ugly or unappealing, perhaps on the contrary; he was tall, bulky, sandy brown hair and his eyes that at first, you might find intriguing, but once you meet his cold interior, his way of making anyone feel stupid using his superior intelligence, you would back away. None wanted to put up with him, none wanted to feel inferior next to him, so they all left him to be; alone.

He took the plastic cup from the machine, ready to head to his office, when someone called his name, making him turn around in the source of the voice.

Obsidian eyes looked at the person who called him; hair flowing down shoulders, eyes sparkling with knowledge and recognization, a big smile showing pearly whites.

"Asa? Is that you?" you asked, stopping in front of him.

His brows pulled into a furrow, confusion evident on his face.

"Do I know you?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Does 'Bugaboo' ring a bell?" you asked with a mischievous smile.

One minute passed, then two, then his eyes widened as memories from so long ago crashed back onto him. He was looking at you like he'd seen a ghost, like he believed what he saw was just a hallucination.

"[Name]?" He tested the name on his lips and tongue, it felt so foreign.

Your lips pulled into a grin and you nodded.

"So, you did remember?" you asked, chuckling at his shocked expression, which you found cute.

It's been years since he said your name, memories of two little kids spending their time on the edge of the forest close to the town, basking into the beauty of nature.

If Asa had to recall a good memory it would be that his little hands holding a book as he read aloud, you leaning on his side, listening to his voice as he read paragraph after paragraph. It was probably the only time he felt not constricted by his fathers' rules, in your presence he felt peaceful, not afraid or uncomfortable.

You were the only one who had the time and patience with his awkwardness, the only one not to judge, and the only one who was genuinely nice to him, never expecting anything in return.

As a kid, Asa was very shy and his self-esteem was just dust, the only ability he was very sure of himself was his academics, but even that if it wasn't molded to perfection his father would destroy.

Perfection.

All his life resorted around it, be it in all kinds of aspects, but that's what Asa thrived on, quintessence.

"What are you doing here?" Asa found himself asking.

Before the massacre of his family, probably one or two weeks prior, you left, your family left; you pretty much disappeared, leaving him alone and he could recall his father's mean words.

'People are temporary, son. They come and go, none stays forever. They seek you until they found you unneeded.'

"I'm in my last engineering year and they transferred me here, but I'm glad they did. I didn't expect to see you here, but I'm very happy so." you genuinely said, making him gulp down, nervous.

Asa wasn't nervous.

"I work here." Asa simply stated.

"Ahhh...So your dream to be a successful entomologist finally happened. I knew you would make it." you said with a grin, pulling your backpack over your shoulder.

You took one some coins and put them into the coffee machine to get your own beverage. 

Now that you were closer, his eyes inspected you. He recalled when you were kids you were both the same height, but now he pretty much towered over you. Your hair used to be shoulder length, but now it was past your middle back in loose curls, a loose red wine-colored sweater covered your upper body, the material a little past your hips, your legs hugged by black leggings and brown Uggs on your feet.

"I really need some hot coffee. Its cold outside and I think it won't take much to snow." you said, but Asa was more so comparing your actual form to that of your younger self.

As a kid you were cute, he remembers that, but now you were a woman, and what little warmness he had for you as a child now it came back, but in a much different shape. Both of you were adults, no longer children.

"I guess I will see you around, Bugaboo?" you asked with a raised eyebrow, using the childish nickname and making him look away, but alas nodding.

You gave him one last smile and marched away down the hallways, his eyes trained on you until you disappeared around the corner.

Asa couldn't believe what just happened, he still debated if everything was just a very realistic dream, but his confirmation was made when he saw you around the university, always flashing him a smile and waving at him.

Some staff members even teased him, asking if you were his girlfriend or so.

'Emory! I didn't know you had a woman. You sneaky bastard.'

'She sure is a pretty one. Wonder what she sees in you.'

He wished he could take a scalpel and cut the brown-nosing idiots from neck to groin, but he had more self-restraint than most. 

What he really felt towards you wasn't just an attraction; yes, he was attracted to you, but there was also a catch. Everyone who fell as victims to the Collector knew that if Asa Emory was attracted to you, it meant a death sentence or a complete nightmare.

He was patient, he was a strategist and planned everything with the utmost precision, and that leads to you being chained to a bed, makeshift gag to prevent you from screaming, although Asa doubted that someone will actually hear you, probably only his guard dogs and the collected ones that were still alive.

The hotel was isolated outside the city and not even cars passed by to wonder what odious things were going inside.

You had tears running down your face, and the bonds on your wrists created uncomfortable bruises that you knew will be purple by the end of this nightmare. Your attention was pulled from trying to break free to the door of the room as it opened slowly, revealing a tall man dressed in all black. He closed the door, locking it and putting the keys on the utility belt around his waist.

Even in the dim-lit room, you could make out some sort of his appearance; he was white, very bulky, so fighting hand to hand against him will do you no good. As he came closer you could make out his eyes from behind black carapace-like a mask. Your eyebrows were pulled into a furrow, these eyes looked so familiar, that certain spark in them, it was then that your body froze in shock, like you were struck by a lightning.

Maybe it was only your imagination playing with you. As he stalked oh so slowly towards you, his gloved hand coming up to take your gag out of your mouth, making you take a deep breath and close your eyes as a whimper escape your lips.

"A-Asa?" You tried to say his name, wondering if it was really him, although you could never mistake his eyes for anyone else.

"Not Asa." he replied, his voice all too recognizable, but what did he mean that it wasn't him?

"W-What?" you choked out, only for his finger to press against your lips and you swore you could taste the blood.

He looked over you, calculating eyes taking you in, then you squeaked as he swiftly got on top of you, his nitrile covered hand coming to gently cup your chin, his eyes absorbing every little detail that made you a whole.

"P-Please...T-This is not you. This is wrong." you tried to kick some sense into him, not wanting to anger for God knows what he is capable of.

"No. Of course not." he whispered, his mask brushing against your cheek as his breath hit your ear, the close proximity between your bodies making you feel anxious.

Eyes widened when you saw the glint of a blade, his hand grasping the handle of the weapon as the steel trailed up and down your legs, then between your breasts and resting under your chin, making your gaze never turn away from his.

"Please don't kill me...." you begged, closing your eyes to let around a set of tears fall down your face.

He tilted his head to the side, curious at your desperate words. That was a habit of Asa, you remembered how cute it was when he tilted his head in pure genuine curiosity when he saw something that piqued his interest, but now, it was downright disturbing.

"I'm not gonna kill you." he answered your beggings, his mouth against your ear, and you had to fight the urge to kick your legs when his tongue came out to lick behind your ear.

"I'm gonna punish you for leaving....little pet." your eyes widened, heartbeat stopping at the dark suggestion of his sentence.

Next thing, your ears were meet with the ripping sound of your blouse, a scream tearing from your mouth, only to be silenced by a hand around your throat.

"A-Asa..." you choked out, his lips pulling into a sadistic smirk, obsidian eyes sparkling with lust.

"The Collector."

[leonawriter]

My Personal Takes on Stormbringer:

Without a full and accurate translation to go through in one sitting, it’s still hard to get a handle on things properly. That said, thank you to everyone who’s working on it. 

Now.

(please note all quotes are my memory of translations I have read, and are not verbatim.)

-Asagiri, please, you do not need to make so many coding analogies with regards to Chuuya and Verlaine. They don’t work.

-It often feels - not just in this book but also in 55 Minutes, where there are tight restrictions on a time travel ability - that Asagiri limits abilities based on how scientifically accurate they are. However, this doesn’t make sense! why should it! Literature should be an expression of freedom. There should be rules - the same way the Page has rules - but in the sense of Magic A is Magic A. You make up the rules and then you don’t break them in future. Why have Kunikida able to create something with a mass heavier than a piece of paper out of a page of his notebook, but then say you can’t do [x/y/z] because it’s scientifically unviable?

-I have no issue with how skk treat each other. they are chaos teens. let them be. like... this is the beginning of their actual trust. they’re also in the mafia, and in a dark time in their lives. it’s fine. (it isn’t, but at the same time, it kinda is.)

-I feel like Chuuya taking things from other people and making that thing “his” fits him as a character? he had nothing before, so when you have nothing, all you have is what people give you. If someone gives him a bike, then that bike is his now. He has to learn to look after it, love it, and respect it, and he’ll remember that friend by it. Same goes for pretty much anything else. Also, it’s a show of how well Chuuya adapts to things, and what things he chooses to pick up.

-The hat. I do not like how the hat was treated. Making it into the key that helps Chuuya be able to activate Corruption cheapens the meaning and weight of having been given the hat as a memento of the first person who told him to live as a human being. Why not have the hat be a reminder of his humanity in a purely sentimental way? I’m going to ignore anything canon about this and just say it’s sentimental. Which, like, it could have been a safety blanket type thing, not pseudo-science.

-The coding in Chuuya’s body is a bit... of a reach? How do you put that in there? I don’t get it. Just say that there’s a possibility he might die if he uses Corruption, or that he’ll never become “Chuuya” again. That he’d lose himself utterly. The log history can be either on a chip (insert Dazai making “lost dog, if found return to the mafia” jokes here) or on something else that could easily be destroyed during the course of the story (or not).

-Dazai living in the shipping container reads to me like an extreme version of “I do not want to be found I do not want to be helped I am worthless trash and what’s the point in having an actual home if I plan on dying any day anyway.” Verlaine asks what drove him there, and Dazai says “you” and tbh that offers up so many questions (like, was the shipping container thing recent, was it temporary, or what). There’s the possibility that Dazai doesn’t always live there, because otherwise he’d suffer from hypothermia and get pneumonia in the winter! But above all, Mori had nothing to do with this. He was probably terrified to go too close in case he got killed. Stop saying Dazai lives here because “poor baby was abused :(” that sure was not it.

-Dazai goes all this way - plotting for ages, since before the beginning of the book, having been number one on Verlaine’s hit list, just to get the truth about Chuuya’s humanity and to preserve it - because “I want to see Chuuya suffer as a human being” is him saying he doesn’t want to see Chuuya become like him, or inhuman, because that’s not Chuuya. (dude, there ain’t a straight explanation for this...)

-following on from the previous, Dazai refusing to just let things be the moment he realises that it’d mean double suiciding with Chuuya. I personally see that as a shippy moment because Dazai had already given up on Chuuya being alive (if I read the translation right) and in that case, dying would just be letting go. But Mori says “yeah but I don’t think he’s dead yet?” and that, along with the “double suicide” thing, makes Dazai go “absolutely NOT.”

OK a related thing - as far as I remember, when IRL Dazai attempted double suicide, right up until his actual death it would result in either a failure or... his partner dying and him surviving. The cold potential of this happening in BSD if Dazai had just given up reminded me of that.

-Regardless of my thoughts on how it was handled, Stormbringer reinforced my previous ideas about how Chuuya basically IS Arahabaki. It also suggests that Arahabaki was more of a sentient ability than a true “god” but... that’s fine. For me, all I cared about was that all those “Arahabaki is an evil being that is constantly trying to take over Chuuya and Corruption is Arahabaki being let out” takes are not true. It’s... basically Chuuya taking the lid off his power. I joked at one point that Corruption is Chuuya going “I’m so pissed off I’m gonna kick the door open and throw away the key” and Dazai going “go for it babe, I got your key.”

-Rimbaud and Verlaine are... very complicated characters? They’re not easy to get a handle on. I sometimes find myself liking them and sometimes find myself disliking them, and that’s something that’ll be easier when I have a full translation available - and one of Fifteen. Rimbaud was held back by seeing Chuuya, at first, as nothing more than an empty vessel to Arahabaki’s power, while Verlaine was so taken over by grief without understanding how to handle that, that he became a monster up until the end of the story. Neither of them were good people. That said, their relationship to each other? It’s very complicated and reminds me of their IRL selves to a point but without the skeevy nature and without it going so far, so kudos to that.

-Adam. Knowing his creator was a ten year old girl makes so much sense when you look at the things he says and does. He doesn’t get so much. He’s very logical, but doesn’t understand that a game of billiards isn't as much of an icebreaker as he thinks it should be. Surprised by bubble gum. Games like “strange things humans do” are very much like the word games kids play in the car. 

-Verlaine being the fifth executive was something I did not predict at all, whatsoever, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Like... how did he get to that point. Only so much can be said in a few paragraphs (it seems) of “this is [x] number of years in the future where Chuuya’s an executive now.” 

The last we see of him, he’s overcome by grief, hatless, and he seems to have only just realised how much he wished he could return what Rimbaud gave to him. (Ironically, by being able to grieve like that, it shows that he is capable of what he thinks he can’t do - same as Dazai.)

But how does he become an executive? Do they come to him slowly at first, and they gradually build up trust? Does he stay in contact with Chuuya? Do they see each other properly as brothers now, or not? I can’t help but feel that as it’s a long time - six years, in fact - between Stormbringer and canon, some bond of trust must have been built. The mafia protects Verlaine from the authorities and from the outside world just the same as Kouyou says that she wants to do for Kyouka, and the same as they’re there for Chuuya, too. So. A Verlaine who trains the mafia’s best assassins not because he’s forced into it, but because he feels the same loneliness as Chuuya, and finds that it helps? A Verlaine who learns slowly that he can care about more people than just Rimbaud and Chuuya? Holy shit yes please. A Verlaine who is loyal and protective and who you should be glad is in a (probably) gilded prison of the mafia’s basement, because otherwise he would actually do so many things to those who would harm his family.

Let’s just say - if I think of Arahabaki as a guardian or protector god who is just plain destructive because it can’t help that, then Chuuya and Verlaine looking and acting in similar ways because they share that same “parent” in a sense, makes sense. They are no longer just Arahabaki, they’re “Chuuya” and “Verlaine” - but they also share traits such as “Papa Wolf” and “lonely” and “violent,” among others.

-At least twice, pre-Soukoku Dazai and Chuuya refer to how they’re constantly thinking of each other. No, they don’t mean in positive ways, but they’re chaos teens and it’s still strong emotion. Chuuya mentions how he’s thought of at least 190 ways to punish Dazai for the things that he does (which also implies how their relationship is equal, and Dazai doesn’t call all the shots, and doesn’t get away with everything scot-free), and Dazai says that Verlaine can’t possibly win against him, because Dazai “spends all of his time, waking and sleeping, thinking of ways to annoy and harass Chuuya,” (quote not perfect.) 

We also have Chuuya having Dazai appear to him first in his hallucinations, which I see as Chuuya’s inner Dazai-voice saying all the worst things, and ironically not actually saying or meaning things that would get across what real Dazai would want him to feel; in other words, that’s Chuuya’s view of him, or his mind searching for the one person he’d believe it to realistically come from.

As well, Dazai saying “there’s no way Chuuya could be an artificially constructed personality, because no one could create a personality that I [hate/that annoys me] so much.” Which, like... sure... you tell yourself that, kid...

Basically, they’re all the kinds of things that teenagers who don’t really get how strong feelings like these work yet, who are still figuring themselves (and their orientations, probably) out, would say if they don’t even like that other person that much, but they’re still attracted to them. A strong “why does it have to be THEM?” haha. And yet, as others have pointed out, Chuuya seems more on the oblivious side than Dazai, since as said, Dazai goes to all this effort and seems fond (but only when Chuuya’s not looking, dumbass) but Chuuya just... doesn’t get it.

A shorter summary of my thoughts and feelings?

Chuuya suffers, but is ultimately happier for it no matter whether he’s one of the clones or whether he’s the original (it’s arguable either way, and I don’t mind either way) as he’s still Chuuya. His bond with the mafia is also stronger than so many people think it is. They’re literally his adopted family. Even if he chose to leave, he’d still see them as family. I can’t see him leaving. He’s just... they’re family... don’t tear them apart...

The skk is strong, no matter what people say, because this is the start and it’s the end of their first year in the mafia and it’s not supposed to be a healthy time, for fuck’s sake. They’re both all sorts of messed up. They’re allowed to be. This is a time when that’s kinda the point of the book. But yeah, the trust and the bond is real.

Verlaine. I am now fascinated by Verlaine. I was so sure before the spoilers and translations came out that I’d hate him. I no longer do. He confuses me but I NEED TO KNOW MORE. 

[mcfiddlestan]

Fic Writer Questions

I'm bored and this was in a note on my phone from forever ago, so I must have been tagged at some point. Apologies to whoever tagged me. 🥴

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

52. Though, I used to have a few more. I deleted a few fics some years ago bc I hated that they were just sitting there unfinished. I was going through a particularly brutal bout of writer's block that affected both my fic writing and my RP writing.

2) What's your total AO3 word count?

720,782. And I was stressing about a 30-page thesis. 😂 (which ended up being over 15,000 words)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I started writing fic in 2000 with *NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, and Backstreet Boys fics. I stopped writing a bit around 2004-2007 (because of a stupid boy) and picked it up again in 2012 after reading some awesome Cherik fics and wanting to write my own FrostIron College AU when I read one that was good, but kind of disturbing. I think I write for one fandom -- Marvel -- but, like different factions of it. FrostIron and WinterFrost mostly, with a dash of Stucky, ThunderFrost, DashingFrost, and WinterIron.

4) What are your Top 5 fics by kudos?

Black Light Special (WinterFrost) - 628 kudos

Can I Bum A Ride? (WinterFrost) - 425 kudos

Empire State of Mind (FrostIrom) - 420 kudos

Dark Side (FrostIron) - 398 kudos

A Worthy Collection (FrostIron) - 309 kudos

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really do make an effort to respond to every single comment, even the not-so-nice ones. I want people to know I've seen and read the comment they took the time to post, so even if I just thank them for reading and commenting, I respond.

6) What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Considering it features two -- count 'em, two! -- major character deaths, it's definitely Empire State of Mind. Though, I'd argue Dark Side is a pretty close second.

7) What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Probably Ghosts That We Knew. It was the final fic in the trilogy that is the Picture Perfect Series. It follows Loki and Tony from when they meet in college and ends 30+ years later.

8) Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

No, not really. And I rarely, if ever, read them. There's no real reason behind it other than I've just never come upon one and thought "ooh I need to read that."

9) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes. I got a lot of hateful messages after I completed Empire State of Mind. People were really angry at me for killing off two major characters. I mean, a lot of the messages were "omg I hate you but I loved this!" kind of vibe. But there were a few that cussed me out and called me names for writing it.

I had some chapters of a Fools Rush In FrostIron AU posted a while ago, in which Loki was a female, the only daughter in both the Odinson and Laufeyson families. Following the storyline of the Matthew Perry/Salma Hayek movie, Loki meets Tony Stark in a bar and gets pregnant from a one night stand. Anyway, I got a lot of messages telling me that Odin's misogyny and mistreatment of Loki was unrealistic -- even though I had literally modeled his behavior after the movie that inspired it. 🤷🏽

I have some prompts done for the 100 Ways to Say ILY writer's block challenge and for one of them, I borrowed the storyline from an episode of Will & Grace when Will's father dies of a heart attack after they have a bad argument where his father basically admits he wished Will wasn't gay so he could have had an easier life. In the epsiode, the fight starts because Will's parents gift his baby blanket to Grace, who is pregnant with her ex-husband's child. Will takes offense, they don't understand why bc he never mentioned wanting children, and a fight ensues. Similarly, in my fic, Frigga and Odin offer a pregnant Natasha (his BFF) Loki's blanket. Some readers did not like this and did not understand why I would write it. In another prompt, one that was literally how my last relationship ended, got some harsh critiques. Those ones hurt especially bc it was such a personal experience I wrote about.

And I actually got into a fight -- like a screaming match -- IRL with my best friend's boyfriend at the time. One of my bestie's friends asked about my fanfiction and I gave them the gist of one of my stories where Loki has a brief relationship with Sif that results in a child and later reconnects with Tony. Later on, Sif offers to be a surrogate for Tony and Loki and eventually births three more children for them. Bestie's boyfriend could not fathom why a woman would purposely get herself impregnated and then give the child away. I tried to explain that this was a thing that a lot of women did IRL -- and some don't even use their own eggs, but the eggs of a woman who cannot conceive; Sif used her own eggs so that all four children were half related (two by Loki, two by Tony). But he just did not believe me and told me I must not be a very good writer. Worst night of my life.

10) Do you write smut?

I was just telling @teadrinkingwolfgirl the other night how when I first started writing fic I did not write sex scenes. It was always inferred or glossed over. When I started writing again in 2012, for FrostIron, it was my first time writing more detailed sex. I cite Jackie Collins as my smut-writing mentor. I've written almost exclusively M/M smut.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Which is like the best thing ever! A couple of my older fics have been translated to Russian. I have one *NSYNC fic that was made into an audio fic. And someone recently messaged me on ff*net to ask to translate as many of my fics as they can to Spanish. :D

13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, not technically. I've gotten a lot of prompts and ideas from friends and mutuals, and I started reformatting my WinterFrost RP with my ex from 2014-2015 into novel form a while ago. That's tecnically the only thing I've written with someone else and published.

14) What's your all time favorite ship?

I have two that will always, ALWAYS, have my heart and attention. FrostIron (Tony Stark/Loki) and WinterFrost (Bucky Barnes/Loki). They are the two ships that I write the most, read the most, and seek out fanart for the most.

15) What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Probably The Flame. It's a fic that starts out ThunderFrost (not related; Asgardian Prince Thor semi-rescues an imprisoned Jotun Prince Loki) but eventually ends up FrostIron. It's the only fic I've ever written that features Loki with both male and female biology. I have a few chapters done but I haven't worked on it in years.

16) What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I write realistic relationships. And I think my dialogue is also realistic and easy to grasp. And I put a lot of humor in between all the angst and hurt.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I get too detailed with background. I just reread my Picture Perfect series (which I do like once a year), and there are literal paragraphs of background that in Google Docs is like pages and pages. But I want to make sure people understand my characters! LOL

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I'm a big fan of it. I featured a lot of Norwegian in the Picture Perfect series. And French. I think as long as it flows with the storytelling and it's not forced on the characters it can be really cool. It should be natural. I always leave a translation list at the end of the chapter or explain in-text what was said. Which I think most authors I've read do.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Backstreet Boys. LOL. Don't judge. I started writing my own fics after discovering BSB fanfiction written by an author named Mistress Lynz. She wrote a lot of fics about bloodletting, but I really enjoyed the fics where the guys were hooking up with each other behind the scenes, LOL explains why I write mostly M/M now. 😂

20) What's your favorite fic you've written?

They're kind of like my babies so at different times different ones are my faves. But if I really had to pick one, I would say Stay With Me is my favorite. I got some of the most amazing comments on this story from people that found meaning and themes in the story that I didn't even realize I'd put in there. It was one of my first WinterFrost fics I'd posted and the response was more than I could have asked for.

And now I have to tag people! @teadrinkingwolfgirl @incredifishface @incubigirl @rabentochter @marvelswinterfrost and whoever else feels up to it.

xoxo

[tloujm]

Part XI: Are We OK?

Author’s Notes: As mentioned in the first paragraph, this takes place a month after the last chapter. Speaking of the last chapter, this one was kind of difficult for me to write as well. Trying to tap into that vulnerable, emotional Joel, when we really didn’t see that until TLOU 2, wasn’t as easy as I thought. And Naughty Dog barely gave us that side of him before they killed him off so...I’m down for straying away from canon, but I wish there was more Joel material to go off of. Maybe if we cry loud enough, Naughty Dog will hear us and we’ll get a DLC with more flashbacks in like 7 years. I already got it planned out, the next chapter will have a new genre, HORROR, just in time for Halloween, then I’ll get back to the smoother-you-with-romance Joel x Reader. 

Genre: An order of Joel Miller, heavy on the angst, with a side of fluff, hold the smut.

Summary: You and Joel find out if the two of you are expecting. Jackson is introduced to a strange newcomer

Ship: Joel x Reader

A month and some change had gone by which meant that you were late. Life had gotten particularly busy, so you didn’t notice how fast time was flying, but Joel did. He knew you were late, but he wanted to see if you would bring it up first. 

“How you feelin’?” Joel asked, gently nudging your shoulder as the two of you walked together.

“I’m fine.” You answered. It was your default answer, but after realizing that he was still looking at you, reading your face, you understood what he meant. Throughout the month he would dote on you a little extra to make sure you weren’t feeling faint or nauseous. “I really am fine, Joel. I haven’t gotten my period yet, though.”

“Ok.” He said as he breathed out. He looked forward with those doe eyes.

“That doesn’t mean anything yet. My periods were never really consistent in the first place. Let’s just wait a little longer and see.” What you said was true, but you also weren’t sure if you were ready to admit to yourself the possibility of having a life inside you. 

Joel took your hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “Ok.”

One day while out on patrol, Joel convinced his group to make a detour and check out a small plaza. It had a boutique, veterinary office, post office and, most importantly, a pharmacy. While the others started at the boutique to find new clothes, Joel snuck off to get a head start at the pharmacy. He secured the location before pacing up and down the aisles. His eyes bounced around the shelves as his hands randomly skimmed the items on them. They have to be here, he thought. It's not like they were in high demand during a pandemic. Soon enough, he’d found what he was looking for and stuffed his bag with a few boxes just as the group was catching up with him. Joel explained away his departure with ease and joined in scavenging for medical goods. 

As soon as they’d passed through Jackson’s gates, Joel bee lined it to your house. He let himself in as he usually did and called out your name. He wasn’t sure if you were home but he was too anxious to try and track you down. Luckily, your footsteps were heard from the other room. He waited as patiently as he could for you to meet him in the living room. 

“You’re back!” You exclaimed. “What happened out there? I thought you were going to be back in time for lunch.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. We stopped at some small plaza. It was off-map.”

“I hope you guys found some good stuff.” You commented while throwing on your jacket.

“Yeah, we did.” He quickly replied before furrowing his brows. “You going somewhere?”

You nodded. “I was gonna go help Wendy out again today. You can come too, but It’s ok if you’re too tired. I know you just got back.”

“(Y/N),” He began, leaving your name to hang in the air with suspense. He slid his backpack off of his shoulders and dug around for the contents that he found at the pharmacy. 

“What’s wrong?” You noticed the strange look on Joel’s face. Mind racing, you grew afraid of what he was going to pull out. You watched as he placed three narrow boxes on your coffee table. You took a step closer to inspect them.

“There was a pharmacy there, so I figured why wait and see when we can know now.” His voice was as casual as ever, but he gazed at you with those pleading, doe eyes that you were still growing used to. Your own eyes bounced between him and the items on the table. You read the single word on the face of the boxes with its pretty, pink font, “Pregnancy”. By the picture of the stick, you already knew what it was, but the “P” word was unavoidable. 

“Joel,” You started softly. “I started my period. I didn’t notice until after you left this morning for patrol.”

“Oh.” He looked between the tests and your shoes, avoiding eye contact.

“It probably just came late because of stress; you know living in this world ain’t a piece of cake.” You awkwardly chuckled to lighten the mood. “A cycle could be thrown off because of a change in diet. Different foods affect hormone balances. Or...or...um...when women spend time around each other, their cycles link up. I know it sounds weird, but it’s true because...um science.” You ramble on, trying to fill the silence.

He stopped you before you could speak again. “It’s ok, (Y/N). Guess we don’t need these.” He picked one of the tests up and inspected it before throwing it back in his bag. 

Joel focused on his actions after you told him the news. He didn’t want to seem disappointed. He’d be lying to himself if he said that he wasn’t, though. It was probably for the best, he thought to himself. He couldn’t imagine outliving another child or losing his love during childbirth. He scoffed at his own thoughts as he wished that storks delivering babies on doorsteps were a real thing. Maybe the two of you could share a pet. Joel made a note to put effort in befriending a stray cat or dog the next time he came across one.

You were more worried about Joel’s feelings than your own when you saw the dark red stains on your panties that morning. Neither one of you were explicitly against having a baby together, but you were afraid that he would get too comfortable with the idea of you actually being pregnant. You offered to stay in with him, but he declined and insisted that you go. He left out the door behind you and walked silently by your side until it was time for him to turn down his street. His eyes were focused on his front door, wanting nothing more than to walk through it and sink into the couch. Suddenly, he heard a voice speak up on the walkie-talkie. He had forgotten to put it back after patrol because he was so anxious to see you. The voice belonged to Dean, a watchtower guard and he sounded frantic as he called for help at the gate. Always having a radio on him, Joel knew that Tommy would have heard the message as well. Joel quickly turned on his heels and jogged up to the main gate of Jackson just in time to meet the other people who heard. Dean explained from the tower that there was a little girl on the other side of the gate covered in blood. She was unresponsive when he questioned her. Dean didn’t know whether she was the bait in an ambush or just a lost little girl who needed help. Maria made the decision to open the gates. She stepped through first, followed by an armed Tommy and Joel. The two brothers kept their eyes peeled for signs of anything suspicious in the distance. Maria approached the child and tried to talk to her herself. She appeared to be in a catatonic state. Maria deduced that she had just experienced something extremely traumatic. Joel watched as Jackson’s leader gently reached out to check her body for any wounds, having been unsure if the blood was hers or not. The girl only looked past her, but didn’t flinch when touched. Joel holstered his gun before taking off his jacket to wrap it around her. Maria mouthed a thank you in his direction before ushering her into the settlement. 

Joel and Tommy decided to stay with Dean at the watchtower as a precaution just in case anyone was following her. Maria immediately walked the girl to the daycare center. She wanted to try again, but if there was anyone who could connect with a child, it was Wendy. 

You were bringing snacks into the play room for the kids when you heard faint voices coming from Wendy’s office. You slowed down as you passed in front of the cracked door. You recognized Maria’s voice. Wendy’s tone was soft and gentle which made you assume that a child was in there as well. What would Maria want with one of the kids? Did one of them get in trouble? You finished handing out the snacks when Maria entered the playroom.

“(Y/N).” Maria called out from the corner of the room. She gestured with her head for you to meet her. “We got a newcomer in today.” She began to slowly shake her head. “I don’t know what to make of her. She won’t talk to anybody. Wendy is in there currently trying. You’re trained in first aid right?” She asked.

“Yeah, but it’s not like I’m a nurse or anything.”

“Our only doctors are operating right now. You’re all we got.” She looked at you with pleading eyes. “I did a once over on her before bringing her in, but I’d appreciate it if you could look her over and make sure she’s alright.”

You looked back at the kids peacefully eating. “Let me get one of the older kids to look after them and I’ll go back there with you.” Maria nodded before watching you go outside to pull one of the big kids off the playground. 

“This way.” Maria guided you back towards Wendy’s office. You grabbed the basket full of uneaten snacks since the office was on its way to the kitchen.

“I’m assuming she’s a child.” You stated to which Maria nodded. “She showed up by herself?”

“As far as we can tell. Joel and Tommy are currently on lookout to see if she was followed. Dean said he found her approaching the gate covered in blood.”

“Jesus.” You exclaimed in a whisper. “When was this?”

“I just brought her over here from the gate.” Maria said before opening the office door for you.

Wendy was crouched down in front of the little girl, speaking to her in her softest tone. She remained standing after ignoring the older woman’s offer of a chair. Wendy turned to the two of you when she heard the door open. She seemed at a loss after making no more progress than she did when Maria left. You recognized the jacket wrapped around the child’s small frame and you expressed a tiny smile at the thought of Joel’s generosity. His clean, warm jacket was a stark contrast to the blood and grime covering her body. You walked up to her and sat the basket of food down at her feet. Silently, you picked up half of a grilled cheese and held it out for her to take. For a few moments, she did nothing but stand there. Her eyes were glued to some object past your head. Finally, she glanced down at the still warm sandwich in your hand and weakly reached out for it. She brought it up to her mouth and took a little, mousy bite. To help support the sandwich, she brought up her other hand to hold it, revealing that she was missing the last two fingers on that hand. You could tell by the redness that they were severed fairly recently. You would need to take a closer look, but it didn’t seem infected so far. You watched her for a moment before stepping back, giving her space to eat in peace. When she finished, she wiped the crumbs with the back of her hand and reverted back to her prior stance. Tenderly, you removed the jacket and circled around her to get a better look at her body. She was really skinny; probably nearing malnutrition. It made it difficult for you to estimate an age. Especially during developmental years, the lack of proper nutrients could stunt the growth of a child. Seeing how docile she was with the others, you confidently picked her up and sat her on a table that brought her to your height. There you took off her exterior layers to get a better look at her skin for wounds. Like Maria, you guessed that she had been traumatized. Seeing a child that you could only assume was born after the outbreak be put through so much was heartbreaking. After a more thorough check, you determined that none of the blood was hers. You were relieved to see that, but at the same time wondered what situation she had to have been in to get all of that on her. 

“You’re ok. You’re in a safe place, now.” You finally spoke to the girl. She made eye contact, but did not verbally acknowledge your words. “How would you like to get in a nice, warm bath and relax? I’m sure you came a long way to find yourself here. We can make you more grilled cheeses to eat when you get out.” You pleaded. Again, she was silent, but as if on cue, her stomach growled loud enough for everyone to hear. As if embarrassed, she looked down at her feet.

“I’ll get right on those grilled cheeses.” Wendy said, leaving her office. You took the girl’s hand and led her out as well. Maria followed you two to one of the bathrooms. You sat the girl on the toilet seat before Maria beckoned you to meet her at the doorway.

“I’m going to go check on the boys at the gate if you’re ok here.”

“Yeah, me and Wendy will be fine.” You glanced back at the little girl. To your surprise, she was watching you.

“Okay, good. Let me know if you need anything.” Maria said before stepping out.

The girl watched as you ran the water into the tub. Bubbles formed and steam floated off the surface of the water. It was enticing, even for you, especially since it was still winter. You helped her out of the rest of her clothes and walked her into the tub. You watched her face flinch as she adjusted to the temperature. 

For the next half an hour, you gave her a sponge bath and washed her hair. She was good as new by the time you were done with her. Before you brought her back into the office, you cleaned and bandaged the stubs on her left hand. Wendy brought the grilled cheese and tomato soup in so the girl could eat in peace. 

“It would be so much easier if we just knew what to call her.” Wendy spoke in an almost whisper as the two of you sat in the office with her. 

“Yeah.” You sighed. “It’s getting late and she’s probably tired.”

“Oh, I bet she is. She probably walked very far to get here. I’ll take her home with me tonight. We have that extra bedroom now and I think she’ll get along nicely with Kevin and Marnie. They’re about her age.” Wendy spoke about her adopted children. “Maybe she’ll feel more comfortable with someone her own age and open up with them.”

“Yeah?” You genuinely questioned.

“Worth a try.” Wendy shrugged, not knowing what else to do. “She just needs some time is all. She’ll see we’re good people soon enough and she’ll be playin’ with the rest of ‘em.”

You took her plate when she was done and checked on the rest of the kids before calling it a night. Your feet were accustomed to the path that took you to your house, but you really wanted to see Joel. Walking up the driveway, you noticed that all of the lights in the house were off. Still, you entered the house and called his name. You followed his voice and orange glow to the living room where he was sitting by the fire. You sat next to him on the floor and leaned your head on his shoulder. It was a cozy feeling. 

“I heard you were in the watchtower today.” You began.

He exhaled. “Yeah, me and Tommy and Dean. So you know about the girl?”

“I fed and bathed her. Maria brought her over to the daycare so I could take a look at her.”

“How was she, nurse (Y/L/N)?” He playfully asked.

“None of the blood was hers. No cuts. There were some bruises though. I hope she feels better now that she’s all cleaned up.” He grunted in approval before falling silent. “Are we okay?” You spoke up.

“’Course we are. Where is this coming from?” Joel asked.

“Well, when I told you I wasn’t pregnant---”

“It’s ok, (Y/N). I meant it when I said it wouldn’t change anything. I love you.”

You smiled. “I love you too and listen, I would be honored to have you as my baby daddy,” He chuckled. “But I don’t think I’m ready now. Are you?”

He gently nodded for a moment. “I think so, yeah.”

“You think you could wait for me? ‘Til I’m ready?”

“This is something I want only with you, so I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Oh is that so?” You teased. “I’ll be sure to remember that.

“Bet you will.”

[stiles-o-dylan24]

Hiii, sorry to bother you, I hope you doing well and are safe

, I wanna do a rewrite of an series, do you have any tips you can share, please?

If you don't wanna then it is fine.🤗

Hey friend💛 thank you, I’m doing well and doing my best to stay safe and I hope you are as well! You’re never a bother and I don’t mind at all to offer my writing tips! 

I wrote down things below the cut that helped me the most and I tried to be as organized with them as I could, so I hope these help and I’m always happy to answer any other questions or help in any way!

Character & Relationships

First thing I would say is to map out your character that you’re adding in to the show. 

Who they are, if you’re going with an OC or a reader insert, and if they’re going to be related to a canon character or if your character is going to have their own family that you’re also going to be creating

What kind of relationships, romantic or otherwise, they will have with canon characters.

Romantic relationships- map out how the ultimate endgame relationship will go: slow burn/enemies to lovers/friends to lovers. 

Have distinguished scenes that will set the pace for whichever of these tropes you go with to be believable. 

Figure out what you absolutely love when reading those tropes and how you can give that same pace to your characters, making sure to include the angst/longing/frustration/soft pure adorableness/body language light touches that makes those tropes so freaking amazing 

Knowing all of this beforehand will ideally help figure out how involved in the scenes you want your character to be. Which I personally think it’s important to brainstorm and actually put thought into reshaping the scenes with your character first, as it will really make it believable to imagine that your character was always in canon and not just put in a scene because you, as the author, say so.

I’ve read one rewrite in particular where the author obviously didn’t think about that with their reader insert character and it really showed. That caused it to feel annoyingly forced and after three seasons not enjoyable to read for me because it never felt like the reader was supposed to be there and I stopped reading it.

I know I view rewrites differently than most people but, to me, if you’re going to take on a rewrite that means you’re altering canon, at least a little bit, for the story to make sense for a new character to be added in like they were there all along. So why not change relationships and morph the story to include someone who in my opinion, and yours since you’re wanting to rewrite it, was definitely missing from the show?

Transcripts/Scene layout

So once you have a good idea of your character and the relationships you want them to have it’ll make how you alter the script easier.

Try to find transcripts of the episodes as this is incredibly easier than watching the episode with subtitles and pausing every few seconds to copy down how says what in a scene.

Every website with transcripts are usually fan made so as you copy them be warned and keep in mind that 

Sometimes who they have saying the line could not always be correct.

Sometimes the line itself is not quite correct to what was actually said

In my case, sometimes the website went away and there’s no data on the page

So for that last bullet point I do suggest, as soon as you find a website with the entire series of transcripts, copying every episode into a separate google doc(or your preferred writing doc). 

Yes it takes some time, depending on how many episodes your show has, however it’s so worth it to not have to go back and worry about the webpage being down when you’re starting season 4 (Yes that happened to me and when the page came back up I copied the rest of the series into docs)

Writing POV

More than likely the webpage you’re copying from will copy the entire episode script into one big paragraph. You will have to go through and space it out properly, however, I used that opportunity to watch the episode at the same time that I was spacing the dialogue. 

which helped in checking that what the transcripts had was correctly copied

the right person was saying what the transcripts had and if not I could quickly change the character

if you’re writing in 1st person you should also use this opportunity to take out scenes that obviously your character wouldn’t/couldn’t logically be in

though I also suggest trying to keep scenes that you feel are necessary to keep the overall story together to be read in a cohesive way. 

You can alternate to 3rd person or you could have your character do a story time to the readers in an inner monologue type of way or have them/another character explain what happened in a little recap. 

I mean your audience, for the majority, has probably watched the whole series and knows what’s happening, but you’re writing a story– why not have it flow as smoothly as if someone was actually watching the series?

To me with writing my series, keeping the overall main story well described was really important. 

I made sure to include story times and little summaries of major events my main character wasn’t apart of whenever I could and it paid off because some people had either stopped watching the show or had forgotten what had happened in later seasons and really enjoyed the fact they could still follow along with the main story.

At the same time do not feel overwhelmed with making sure you include every single event or detail.

 do whatever you feel is necessary to tell your story with your character as you would like it to be read.

And if you’re writing from 2nd or 3rd person, well you’ll more than likely be rewriting everything anyways so my hat goes off to you my friend.

Dialogue

So once you have the layout of the original episode script go through it and write the scenes with your new character(s) as best as you can from memory, since you just watched the episode while you were spacing out the script lines. 

Make the scenes believable and truly feel like your character is supposed to be there by slowing down the need to just cram your character in and instead

Have your character(s) say some of their own lines in between when the canon dialogue lines are spoken

Morph the actual canon dialogue line by either cutting it halfway and having your character(s) finish the line 

or have your character(s) say the canon dialogue line and give one of the other characters a new line/a morphed line from another character’s canon line.

Final Writing of the Episode

Once you’ve altered the episode with your character(s) watch the episode again and read through what you have written.

adding in more actions from the characters/facial expressions that may be missing to really make the scene flow more realistically.

This is the process that really worked for me to edit the episodes one by one and I felt like was the most time efficient to getting through an episode.

I think that writing through the episode without watching it and only reading the script helps in not being distracted or feeling rushed to get through a scene.

Last Notes From Me

Personally I would suggest having the first one or two seasons(depending how long they are) already written out in the ways I mentioned above, if possible the final edits done as well, before you publish the first episode.

This will drastically help you as you continue to finish writing the rest of the episodes and keep to the schedule you wish to keep to. 

It could also help you in making sure that you have added in everything you possibly wanted to add in to later episodes. 

Also help you see that the timeline of a relationship is going exactly as you would like it to.

There’s nothing worse than getting overwhelmed with a posting schedule and it causing you to rush through an episode and you leave out a key plot point that needed to happen for something you wanted to happen later on be exactly as you originally envisioned it happening.

Remember to have fun with this whole process and don’t forget that you’re telling your story for you more than anyone. You feel like something is missing and this is your opportunity to write something you will want to read.

Yes the interaction is fun and helps you get through the moments of ‘is this worth it’, however you also need to write for you. Create something you will want to read to fill that space in your mind of what’s missing when you’re watching the show/reading other people’s rewrites.

Again this is all just my advice and is to be taken with a grain of salt. You need to do things in a way that works for you! What I did was really beneficial to me and my work schedule plus my mindset for what I wanted to bring to my rewrite. It may not work for you so if it doesn’t just be patient with yourself and you’ll find your way.

Hopefully through my long ramble of a message I answered your questions or gave you some form of insight. If I did not or you still have more questions please don’t hesitate to send me another message!

I am here if you need anything– to vent, run ideas by, a beta reader, literally anything- and I absolutely love rewrites, so please tag me in yours🤗 

Good luck and I hope you have so much fun taking on a series rewrite! 

[justpeachii]

Pairing: Sugawara Koushi x Female Reader 

Summary: After getting bored with your love life, you download one of those silly dating apps. However, things don’t go as planned, leaving you crying in your best friends arms.

Genre: College AU (Juniors), angst, comfort, platonic, mutual pining but both are dumb, kind of a cliche ending but :’)

Warnings: profanity and that is all.

Word Count: 3.2 K

Author’s Note: hello! This is my first fic here on the good ole tumblr and i hope you enjoy it! This was very much (sadly) based off of real life events and really just something i wanted to write to get my feelings out. i do suggest listening to the little playlist below while reading because not only were they what i listened to while writing, but also what got me through it (along with some great friends). Also uh… i didn’t expect this to be this long hehe YIKES. Anyways, enjoy! (also i’m SORRY TENDO he got the short end of the stick 😭 i’ll make it up i swear)

also tagging the lovely @noya-sannnn​ !! who inspired me to write this!!

Playlist

blame game (acoustic) by mxmtoon

Grow As We Go by Ben Platt

dream of you (acoustic) by mxmtoon

did it to myself by orla gartland 

ready now by dodie 

Comfort Crowd by Conan Gray

Late nights were always the worst. Between the endless torrent of thoughts or the overwhelming amount of homework, sleep was a luxury you could hardly afford. Afterall, juggling not only 18 credit hours of classes, a part-time job, and work projects for your major was not the norm, but for you, it was. 

Not only was sleep something you often overlooked, but love was as well. That is until one night you decided to download one of those silly dating apps on one of those late nights. After choosing a few of your best selfies and creating a fun little bio, you got to swiping.

Left. Left. Left. Pause. Scroll profile. Left. Pause. Scroll profile. Pause. Right.

It’s a Match!

After a moment of hesitation, you closed out of the message prompt, continuing to swipe and scroll before feeling the weight of sleep upon your eyelids. 

It had been two months since matching with Tendo Satori. Two months full of laughter, late nights at each other’s apartments, and confessions of love. Or at least what you thought was love. What started as a spark had grown to the size of a wildfire, burning inside your chest. A newfound love so strong it made your heart ascend to the highest of places.

However, what goes up must come down. 

While you would like to believe it was sudden, all the warning signs were there. Him growing distant, opening texts but not responding, cancelling plans last minute; the list goes on. The one thing that was sudden was the text you received before class.

Of course this would happen to you fifteen minutes before a two hour lecture. The last thing you would want to see: a paragraph of half-assed excuses followed up by “i just don’t think im ready for a relationship”.

You wanted to scream, throw your phone against the concrete, cause a scene, but you didn’t. As the tears began to flow, you scrolled on your phone for your most trusted friend, pressing on the call button next to their name. 

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Y/n? Don’t you have class soon? What’s going on?”

At this point, you were holding back sobs, voice coming out in a quiet whisper as you held the phone to your ear with a shaking hand.

“Suga… I have class in a few, but I- he-” you couldn’t bring yourself to say the words. What would you tell him after all? While you and Tendo had never put a label on it, it still felt like a break-up. 

“He? Y/n, are you okay?” There was a faint rustle on his end of the line, the sound of him putting his shoes on. “Can you take a few breaths for me? Take your time, I’m here when you’re ready to talk.” 

Doing as he said, you took a few snot-filled breaths before managing to get the tears to stop falling. While you did so, you found a spot outside the lecture hall, sitting beneath a tree and leaning your head against its trunk, letting your eyes close. 

“He ended it. Tendo… He texted me saying all this stuff of how he was sorry for pushing me away and that he wasn’t ready for a relationship.” You said in a firm voice. It was as if you were willing yourself to be strong for his sake, not wanting to worry him more than he was. 

There was a pause from Sugawara as he processed what you had just said. When he spoke, his tone was bitter, one you rarely heard.  

“That piece of shit. Over a text! He didn’t have the decency to call you or, hell, even set up a dinner or something!” He gave a sigh followed by a beat of silence. “I’m so sorry, Y/n… I know it is probably the dumbest question to ask, but are you okay?”

“Not really, but I have to be since I have class in,” you glanced at your watch, groaning, “six minutes. I don’t really want to go, I just want to go home, curl up in my blanket, and cry.”

While your heart was breaking over some boy you had known for a couple of months, Sugawara Koushi’s was breaking for you. Not only was he your closest friend since you transferred to the same university, he was also head-over-heels for you. When you mentioned to him the dates, he feigned happiness for your sake, supporting you through all of it. Now, hearing you in shambles on the other end of the phone made him want to run to you, pull you into an embrace, and give you the world.

Sadly, he couldn’t do what he wished. He knew your professor had a strict attendance policy, which meant that you would have to sit in class for two hours with a broken heart. Two hours for him to prepare as much of the world as he could. 

“I know this is one of the last things you want to hear right now, Y/n, but I know it will get better. If your professor didn’t have such a stick up his butt you would be able to skip without a problem.” As your friend spoke, the tears began to fall once more, your free hand coming up to swipe them away. 

“I know it won’t be for another two hours, but after your class, do you want to come over and we can have a movie night? We don’t have to talk about anything, just watch Tangled or Your Name.”

It took you a minute to find your voice once more, the ball of despair tight in your throat, leaving you to silently nod. Then you find your voice.

“I’d like that, Suga… I’d love it, in fact. I just… I don’t want to be alone tonight, but I also don’t want to bother you and I know-”

“You know you’re never a bother. Trust me, Y/n. After class, come over to my place. You can have my bed and I’ll take the couch.” His voice cut you off from finishing your thought, leaving your lips parted with an apology, a breath falling out in its place.

For the first time in the past nine minutes, you smiled. It wasn’t much, but Sugawara could hear it in your voice from the other side as you whispered, “Okay. Thank you, Suga. I love you, you know?” 

“I love you, too.” His own face was graced with a smile, though behind it he held all his emotions. How he wished to hear those words uttered in a non-platonic way. “Now get to class before you’re late! I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

While you were busy in class, both from note taking, group discussions, and trying your best to not break down any minute, Sugawara was busy in his own way. As soon as the phone call ended, he was out the door, making his way to the nearest convenience store, buying the essentials for healing a broken heart. Four pints of ice cream, a mix of his favorite flavors and yours, a couple bags of chips, some candy, and even a new stuffed teddy bear later, he was checking out, checking his phone constantly for the time, in case he had spent more time than he thought.

With his bags in hand, he made his way back to his apartment, getting everything set up for the movie night. While it wasn’t going to be a joyous occasion, he wanted it to have a happier atmosphere than what the topic of discussion would be. He placed the bags of chips and candy on the coffee table, the teddy bear placed between them; ice cream in the freezer for future consumption. Once the snacks were in place, he began to gather the softest blankets, grabbing your favorite along the way. 

Every time you would come over, no matter the temperature outside, he would find you curled up in it. One finals week while the two of you were cramming for an exam the next morning, he found you dozed off at the coffee table, the same fuzzy grey blanket wrapped around your shoulders. He even took a picture of you, asleep with your cheek in hand, other hand slack from writing notes that had since been abandoned. You still didn’t know about the picture to this day, but it was one he cherished. 

Time seemed to pass quickly as he finished getting everything together, not realizing the time until you knocked at his door. Answering it within seconds, he gave you a gentle smile, opening his arms for a hug he knew you desperately needed. That was all it took for the dam to break once more. As your arms wrapped around him, the tears fell in steady streams onto his t-shirt. 

His hands rubbed soothing circles on your back as he slowly shuffled backwards, pulling you two past the threshold, allowing him to close the door behind you. One hand rested on the back of your head, holding you close to his chest, the other in the middle of your back. The two of you stood there for what seemed like hours before you lifted your head, eyes red and puffy. Sugawara’s hand moved from the back of your head to hold your face, wiping away any remaining tears.

“Sorry for soaking your shirt.” you said with a small laugh, as you finally met his gaze. Warm, brown eyes full of nothing but comfort and safety met yours. There was a soft smile on his lips, while it was kind, it held a hint of sadness. 

“Don’t worry, I like my shirts soggy.” He said with a chuckle of his own. After making sure your face was dry of any tears, he nodded towards the living room. “Now come on, I have a little surprise for you!” 

After slipping your shoes off, you followed him into the living room, spotting the assortment of treats, along with the teddy bear. You swore you were done crying, but a few tears found their way out once more, but this time for a different reason. As you made your way to the coffee table, Sugawara disappeared to the kitchen, grabbing two pints of ice cream and spoons. When he reappeared, you were already curled up on the couch, blanket wrapped around your shoulders, bear in your lap, and a few tears rolling down your face.

“You really didn’t have to do all of this, Suga. A movie and talking would have been just fine,” you said as he sat down next to you handing off your chosen flavor and spoon. He scoffed at your remark, gesturing with his spoon.

“And just fine isn’t good enough! No one deserves to be broken up with through a text. Especially you, Y/n. Why, the next time I see him, he better watch his back.” He said, his glare pointed off to the side.

“There will be no fighting him, okay? Physical or verbally. What happened is… What happened. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming when I could have if I just looked.” You said, opening up the pint and taking a spoonful. With a small huff, he copied your motions, a beat of silence falling between the two of you. 

The lull in conversation lasted for a little while as neither knew what to say. You didn’t want to speak anymore on what had happened, but it was eating away at you. Sugawara could tell it was, so finally he spoke, clearing his throat before doing so.

“I’ll listen,” he said, his gaze meeting yours. The look you gave him was almost that of a puppy that had been scolded. Hurt. Sad. “When you’re ready, I’ll listen. You can tell me everything, okay?”

The two of you sat in silence for a minute more before he decided to put on a movie, filling the void. By the halfway point, the two of you had finished your pints, the cartons since abandoned on the coffee table. The other snacks are left untouched. Finally, you turn towards him and take a deep breath.

“I’m ready now.”

Those three words were all it took for him to pause the movie and shift to face you. For the next two hours, you spilled your emotions to him, both the highs and lows of the two month endeavor. At some point, he had pulled you into his arms and between his legs, his back against the arm of the couch with you on his chest. Your tears soaked his shirt once more as his hands ran up and down your back. Soon, you found yourself asleep in his embrace, exhausted from emotions.

Sugawara looked down at your finally peaceful face, cheeks stained from tears. Carefully, he placed a kiss on the crown of your head, closing his eyes as he silently prayed he would never see you like this again. 

After that night, you and Sugawara started to spend more time together. Not only for study nights, but weekly movie watch nights, daily lunch meet-ups, and impromptu ice cream runs. 

The three months leading up to finals left your old feelings to return, but somehow stronger. While you had gotten over Tendo rather quickly (and likewise with him. Not a week after your “break up” he was in a relationship with someone else) you didn’t want to admit your feelings for your best friend. At least that was the plan until a particularly late night study session that had you banging your head against a textbook that lay on the coffee table. 

“You know you can’t actually cram the information into your memory, right?” Sugawara said with a chuckle. You groaned in response, wadding up a piece of paper and throwing it at him. He batted it away swiftly, leaning on his elbows.

“I know that, but what I don’t know is how I’m expected to memorize all of these algorithms in order to pass!” You whined, giving up as you flopped onto your back, tugging the blanket that was around your shoulders closer. From his spot across the table, Sugawara continued to type away on his laptop, stifling a yawn. 

Laying there, you looked up at the ceiling, thinking back over the past few months. Your mind wandered back to that one terrible day and the lengths that Sugawara had gone through to make sure you were alright. It brought a smile to your face as you closed your eyes, giving a soft sigh. This caught the grey-haired boy’s attention, looking away from his work to see you with the dumbest grin on your face. He couldn’t help his own from pulling at his lips.

“What are you thinking about over there? Doesn’t seem like it’s math by the smile on your face.��� 

“You.”

Caught off guard, he blinked a few times before responding. You, however, hadn’t realized what you had said just yet. While it wasn’t wrong, it was very bold.

“Me? What about me?” He asked, his curiosity overpowering his nerves for the time being.

“How you surprised me that one night. Ice cream, snacks, a teddy bear… Your smile, how much you always seem to make me laugh, you good of a hugger you are… How much I think I love you.” As you listed things off, you grew quieter and quieter, your voice a whisper by the end. 

Sugawara’s heart felt like it had just gotten done running sprints after losing a match back in high school. He felt his cheeks flush as he shifted to better look over the table at you. Never had you said you loved him outside of a friendly manner and here you were, on his living room floor confessing your love for him. 

“You think… You love me, Y/n?” The breath that he had been holding exhaled in a sigh afterwards, only to be replaced with another as he waited for you to respond. 

It was then that you realized what you had said. Immediately, you felt your cheeks flush as you sat up with wide eyes, abandoning the blanket on the floor. Looking like a deer in the headlights, you searched his face for a sign of anything. What you found were cheeks as red as your own, a hint of excitement behind his eyes, and a semi-confused look plastered on his face. You felt it was as good a time as any to get it off the table. Taking a deep breath, you nodded.

“I do, Suga. And I have since the first semester of sophomore year and I never told you because I didn’t think you felt the same way or that things would get a little awkward between the two of us. I tried to just push the feelings away or ignore them, hoping they would go away, but they didn’t and I was too dumb to say anything.”

In the silence that followed, you prepared yourself for the worst. However, the worst didn’t come. Instead, a small string of laughter fell from his lips as the corners of his eyes crinkled, a bright smile lighting up his face. 

“Then we are both dumb, Y/n! I did all of those things for you that night because not only are you my best friend, but I truly do love you. It hurt seeing you like that and I knew I couldn’t tell you how I felt because it wasn’t right.” 

Letting out a sigh of relief, you moved back to the coffee table, placing your elbows on it before laying your hands flat on the surface. Soon, his hands found yours, thumb brushing against the back of your hands. With a small laugh, you gave a small shrug.

With a breathy laugh, you responded, “Even so, why didn’t either of us say something sooner! Then we would have avoided all of that to begin with.” 

Sugawara just shook his head, giving your hands a tight squeeze. “True, but that was the past. Where we are now is where we were meant to be. Like I told you, it got better.”

“It did, and it was all because of you.” Turning your hands over in his, you gave them a gentle squeeze, to which he returned.

“I love you, Y/n”

“I love you, too, Suga.”

[izartn]

On the The Host romance:

A lil note: @into-september as you’re reading Twilight, and your last post made me realise this, I thought it better to write my own post and tag you! Hope you don’t mind.

The Host is the first novel of an “adult” science fiction trilogy by Stephanie Meyer which never was finished. Published in 2008, the same year as Breaking Dawn, I guess she preferred gaining the benefits of her vampire saga to keep on writing. 

For shame, because for me, The Host is much better at establishing worldbuilding, a concept and its protagonists + a romance (not that there isn’t anything cuestionable in it, but to my taste it’s better done than in Twilight). Here is the first paragraph of The Host wikipedia’s section on plot: 

A species of parasitic aliens called "Souls" have invaded Earth, deeming the humans too violent to deserve the planet. When a Soul is implanted into a host body, the consciousness of the original owner is erased, leaving their memories and knowledge. 

Wanderer, a Soul, is placed into the body of Melanie Stryder. However, Melanie's consciousness is still alive and begins to communicate with Wanderer mentally. Wanderer's assigned "Seeker" suggests that she could be placed into Melanie to retrieve the memories before disposing of the defective body, but Wanderer makes several attempts to deny her Seeker's wishes. As Wanderer starts to uncover some of Melanie's memories of her younger brother Jamie Stryder and her boyfriend Jared Howe, Melanie gets her to follow a series of landmarks throughout the Arizona desert to find her Uncle Jeb, hoping that Jared and Jamie are with him. By doing so, she would be denying the Seeker Melanie's memories and the humans they would lead her to.

Just. Read that and have the face to tell me it doesn’t sound more interesting than Twilight I dare you. Of course the books are different genres, although the focus is in the... more sentimental part in both. It’s just that The Host story is more unusual and the worldbuilding dreamy and subtly horrific. 

Well I said I was gonna talk about the romance right? Spoilers incoming!

 A bit of more context is necessary; in The Host, Melanie, the human Wanda (nickname of Wanderer) is possessing, is in love with the boyfriend mentioned in the sinopsis, Jared. Wanda being in the body of Melanie, feels things for him. We can divine for context this is sexual attraction plus having access to some of Melanie’s memories and noticing Jared is pretty ok as humans not possessed are left on Earth. 

Melanie reaction to this oscillates between “don’t you dare touch my boyfriend alien” and “well of course you fell for him, he’s pretty awesome” to “if I can’t it’s ok if you want to” when she’s feeling herself disappear at one point. Which is bullshit bc her conscience comes back when Wanda goes to tell Jared to kiss her bc she’s feeling Melanie disappear and when he gets near Wanda, Melanie usually mounts a whole circus in her head. It works. 

Well that’s one part of the romance. The other is Ian, a human in the settlement who is pretty level-headed and who starts talking to Wanda, as her guard first and then as her friend. No previous contact with Melanie, so he mets Wanda in Melanie’s body and isn’t excessively hostile or sad. Bc you know, an alien is in the body of you “niece, girlfriend, sister, etc” isn’t really conductive to good first impressions although that alien has come bearing the news that said person is still alive somewhere in their brain. 

(Also the whole human group is so hilariously based on those paranoid about the government/end-of-days usa people... And it works! LMAO) (The social dynamics are interesting in this book ok? basic but ingenious)

So Wanda falls slowly without noticing for Ian; Ian falls first and confesses and everything. I think their first kiss was a bit sketchy? But generally they good. 

The interesting thing is this: Melanie and so her body, is in love and attracted to Jared. Wanda, inhabiting Melanie’s body, starts realising that although Jared is pretty ok and all that, he’s really Melanie’s love; she doesn’t exactly like his more violent tendencies. 

(Really he’s more apocalypse survivor hardcore, but he really was a dick to her at the start, bc alien possessing girlfriend and all. Also gave her mixed signals, etc. Very american male which, eh. Melanie is also very apocalypse survivor hardcore; the two mesh well bc of that lmao) 

Well, as Stephanie Meyer is SM, and she has some weird ideas about romance the thing is, Wanda doesn’t feel sexually attracted to Ian. Bc all the hormones in her body are signaling only Jared. But she really is romantically attracted to Ian, and loves him. When they kiss, she likes it, but it’s not super passionate nor does it brings the same high that the few occasions Jared kissed her. To Ian’s credit he doesn’t really get it at the start, but then is immediately acepting of Wanda’s boundaries. I think he pushes a bit? But this SM so. Sigh. (I like to think in the hands of another author he wouldn’t do the sterotypical male thing but yah)

What I mean is that Stephanie Meyer, without intention, created an ace romance. Sure, it bc really weird biological alien science, but if you take it to mean Melanie is demi and only feels attracted to Jared, that makes her body reactions logical when Wanda also falls in love. She isn’t occupying the body wholly; there’s the host original presence; so she falls romantically but not physically. If I’m saying great idiotices please correct me under; I don’t have any background on sexology or biology. 

Sadly, Wanda is also super worried of not being able of correctly loving Ian, so. Negation of ace identity in one, two..., warning to folks sensible to it. 

And well, she ruins it when at the end when Wanda is put outside Melanie´s body into one who doesn’t have a human conscience. She explained the others how to take “souls” out of humans without killing any part, and how to take the “souls” to the space ships where they’ll be transported to other worlds. But sometimes the humans have passed so much time suppressed, or have been taken so young, that there isn’t a conscience-anyone to recover. 

The Host is very weird, bc this is a race of genocidal colonist aliens who are weird beautiful little ribbons of silver in their original form, who after abandoning their original world by possessing another race who invaded them realised they could live whatever lives they wanted possessing people without dying and just. Went for it. They are a supposedly all peace loving gents, who cured all poverty and illness by their superior technology and like, very comunist-anarchist society. Who abhor violence, but don’t see eliminating other people identity as violence. 

They are weird and amazing; when they realise having and raising children as humans costs so much, they start acting as parents to those humans without going to have a soul implanted on their kid, bc they love them as they are. A mess of contradictions, and Wanda is so interesting bc of this. 

Sadly, SM acted again, and made Wanda one of the rare females able of auto-destroying to create more fragments of herself (aka other souls). The rest of souls don’t have any gender and chose bodies as whatever sex they like most. Guess Wanda being an alien was fine, but not having an explicit gender was too much, lol. To be fair, she says she prefers female bodies, but doesn’t really mind. Good on Wanda. 

There’s a secondary romance too; the search of Ian’s brother, Kyle (who almost kills Wanda once) for his abducted girlfriend, Jodie. Results the soul inside her body, Sunny has all of Jodie’s memories of Kyle and is like, already in love with him. She lets herself be abducted, and when they explain they’re gonna get her out and why, is like, cries and begs, but accepts it bc is Jodie who Kyle loves. She hasn’t ever heard her like Wanda did Melanie, though, so when like a week or two pass and Jodie’s conscience remains dead Kyle consents (bc the other relatives of Jodie are soulified) to bring back Sunny. Wow. What a clusterfuck. They don’t date but there’s this weird vibe where Kyle has stopped hating all souls after Wanda’s mess and his encounter with Sunny, and Sunny herself is like; yay! I can live with humans and Kyle and I’ll keep trying to awake Jodie. And the two of them are described as inseparable? 

It’s more intriguing than Twilight; I wished there were more fics interested in exploring cool canon divergences and all. I didn’t dive in the problematiqueTM aspects of the book but come on, this is SM and you have reading comprehension. I just wanted to talk about how interesting is the intersection of sexuality in romance in Wanda’s case >-< Still better than Twilight but I guess the aesthetic of vamps surpases The Host. Which. Valid ok? Each to their own. 

[queeranesearch]

 @harutheestallion Thank you so much for the tag, Arthur!! I kith you, mwah!

(This ended up being way longer than I thought it’d be bc I got so caught up in talking about OTHER people’s writing lmfao, so I’m putting a ‘keep reading’)

Prompt - share your:

First fic: Uuugh god..When I was 11/12 I was really into Attack on Titan, and in my Year 8 English Lit class we had lessons where we did creative writing so of course I wrote an Armin-centric high-school AU. It haunts me to this day but it was so funny to read again later on. But the first fic I actually posted online was a Moomin one, back in 2019. Moomins was (and still is thb) a big comfort media for me, and it always helped me feel better when I was going through some really bad anxiety. I was also very insecure about my writing and hadn’t written anything in years, but I was very attached to the characters and there wasn’t that much content of them so I thought “Fuck it. This is gonna be very self-indulgent. If other people like it then great, but really this is for me.” I did end up getting way more kudos and comments than I thought I would and loads of lovely comments. I read it again a little while ago and the writing is a but rusty, and my paragraphing isn’t great, but it’s really sweet and I had a lot of fun writing it and I think that shines through.

Favourite fic: Dude, I cannot pick one favourite fic, so I’m gonna list a few that came to mind: Hooked by @listless-brainrot - aka THE jetru fic. I will forever scream about List’s writing. The way he’s able to take such a character with one episode, and see the potential pour so much life into him is amazing. He writes Haru with so much nuanced realness, and seeing things though his perspective makes for such an immersive read and gives beautiful insight into his thoughts and wants. I cannot recommend it enough.

Sing a little louder, laugh a little softer by @chief-yue - Such lovely fic exploring the music of cultures ATLA was inspired by. I had the biggest smile on my face reading this; Katrina really captures the dynamic of the Gaang wonderfully, and her descriptions are vivid and heartwarming. 

Two Sturdy Oaks by @rileyblxu - A Dead Poets Society fic and one of my comfort fics ajklasd. The author writes Neil and Todd perfectly; Like if you told me this fic was actually deleted scenes from the movie I would believe you 100%. The dialogue between all the characters is spot on, and the trusting relationship both Neil and Todd have with Mr Keating is so heart-warming to read, and the descriptions were so tender and full of so much love and pining,,dude I actually cried a little. PLUS the use of poems at the beginning of the chapters?? Absolutely iconic for setting the tone. Love it.

Not Ready To Make Nice by @harutheestallion - Tagging you twice hehe. Arthur’s characterization of Jet kills me DEAD. They have so many little nuanced details about Jet, but also how he sees other people and the world around him. They have such a strong grasp on his character; every action he makes in this fic is written cleverly wand with such clear thought put behind it, and Jet’s perseverance and bitterness but also his kindness and desire to protect others really shines through. And HAMA. She’s written perfectly too; so similar to Jet in many ways but also more ‘jaded’ and less hopeful. Their dynamic is so interesting to read and watching them become gradually closer is so lovely.

Henna by @miannmian - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Simran is the QUEEN of fluff. This is one of their shorter works, but it’s packed of such tender characterization. The descriptions are written with so much care and warmth, you can practically feel the love these Jet and Haru have for each other. It’s sweet, it’s domestic, and it makes my heart swell each time I read it.

Can’t Make An Omelette by @citron-ella - A Good Omens fic, but focused on The Them! GO fics that aren’t primarily about Aziraphale and Crowley are hard to come by, so I was delighted when I came across this one, particularly as The Them are my personal faves from the book/show. This fic is so sweet and funny in little nuanced ways. Children are hard to write, especially slightly older ones, but this author wrote them wonderfully; they really captured the lovely curious and mischievous nature of The Them, and each one of the kids was written perfectly in character. The descriptions set the scenes well, and they have a sweet, nostalgic sort of tone to them; it reminds me of what kid’s books used to be like years ago, there’s an Enid Blyton(and I’d even say a Terry Pratchet) like charm to it. And I adore the little detail of Brian being curious about Pollution being non-binary, and recognizing something similar in himself; it was so heart-warming. I also loved the bit at the end where Pepper knowingly acknowledges Brian’s interest in being non-binary; it’s a nice subtle way of showing their friendship and how they pay attention to each other.

Most Recent fic: A jetru oneshot, “Kiss Me?”. It’s pretty simple and fluffy; the lads having their first kiss. To be honest, it’s one of those fics I have a love-hate relationship with; looking back at it there are so many ways I’d rewrite it and make it better, but there are some nice bits there too. 

Fic with most notes: My moomin one I mentioned earlier. It’s called “To Have a Family is an Awfully Complicated Thing”. A VERY wordy title, and again, there a loads of things I wish I could change and do better( I have actually been contemplating rewriting it) but it’s very close to my heart, and I’m glad other people liked it too.

A line or two from a wip: Man, I have SO many wips it’s embarrassing. Here’s a modern Yueki thing I was doing: They didn't know how Yue spent lunchtimes at school in the library, hidden behind the back shelves, reading poetry books held together with thick brown tape; Shakespeare, Dickinson, Keats, Wordsworth, their words lovely yet so disconnected from her; how within the whole breadth of the romantics she could not find one to attach to; how with no great authors to turn to, she put her own pen to paper, spilling thoughts of brown hair and dark eyes, of a face that freckled in the sun, of a laugh that filled her stomach flip with a delightful queasiness, of how her heart ached for the girl that cleaned her grazed knee for her when she was six. ‘Oh dear.’ Yue fiddled with the bag in her lap, zipping it up, zipping it down. ‘There’s no going back now, is there?’

Favourite character to write for (and why): Hmm, I think Yue and Jet, both from ATLA. Something about them just clicks with me; I love Yue to bits and wish we could’ve had more of her in the show, so I love exploring her character beyond being the Moon Princess. I also adore Jet and will forever be angry about how he dirty they did him in the show. Writing him is actually quite challenging, but in a way I enjoy, and I enjoying pushing myself to explore the nuance and depth he had in the show. 

Character(s) you find hard to write: Hm.. I’d say Toph. I love Toph so much but I find it difficult to really capture her strength and rowdiness, but also her compassion and her softer side. 

I’ve tagged a few people in this already, so if they wanna do this feel free to! Also you. Reading this. Consider yourself tagged; I wanna hear about your writing. 

[pebblysand]

of tyres that blow (extended author’s note of chapter v. of castles)

- - TO READ THE CHAPTER ITSELF, CLICK HERE. - -

Oh, what a month it has been. Well, a month and two days - I’m a bit late updating. I’ve had two good things happen, writing wise. 1) I got my first original short story published (!!!!) (you can read it here) and 2) I put out a little one-shot about Fleur Delacour that I’m super happy about and gave me an idea about a new series (more on that later this week, I hope. I might need help with prompts!). Regardless, this latest Irish lockdown is fucking endless and I sometimes wonder if this fic isn’t just an outlet for my feelings of lockdown-induced loneliness, apathy, but also a constant argument that I have with myself thinking: for the love of god, just pull yourself up, will you? You’re a Gryffindor, goddamn it. I certainly wish my fucked up sleeping patterns on no one, although I may or may have Mary-Sued that onto Harry, lol. (Spoiler alert: he’s scheduled to get some real sleep in next chapter. All bets are off regarding whether I will.)

This chapter was surprisingly easy to write (I basically vomited out chapters iv, v, and vi over the span of a week in December) but incredibly difficult to edit. For days, I just couldn’t concentrate, wrote and re-wrote and felt like everything was shite. Then, I realised it’d become this 19,000-words long monster so I had to cut a lot of shit out. We ended up with 15,898 words which I suppose is better? 

I do wonder: do people mind long chapters? Like, I know as fanfic reader, I personally prefer longer formats and rarely gravitate towards works that are less than 3,000 words. I love just getting buried into a story, into plots rather than single scenes. This being said, every time I write something that I deem too long (i.e. above 10k) I have these excruciating struggles where I wonder: should I cut it in half? should I leave it as is? I decided to split the last one. Then, I decided not to split this one because (you may notice this or not, I’m not sure) it’s kind of built a certain way, geared towards basically getting to the last two paragraphs. Like, when you get there, it’s a bit of an ah-ha moment, but I couldn’t get to that ah-ha moment without all the build up before it. It’s the accumulation of all of these little details that feel like they don’t matter. And as Harry says in the end, they don’t, in the grand scheme of things, but also they do. Like, everyday life doesn’t matter until you lose it. Then, it does, if that makes sense.

In terms of next update... I’ve decided to get my law licence transferred to France and the EU (it’s a long story), which means that I need to bloody, fucking study. The exams are at the end of March so my current plan is: hardcore study until the end of february. Mix study/writing in early march and hopefully get chapter vi out mid-March, then hardcore study until the end of March. Please, if you see me posting then, tell me off in the comments cause god, I really need to pass. Now, I will go have my traditional i-ve-put-a-chapter-out shot of limoncello and let you read the below :).

...spoilers for castles, chap v. under the cut -

I’ve done a lot of thinking about what this chapter is meant to be about. Obviously (I hope), every chapter has a point, in this story. Chapter 1 is about time (the way it passes and blurs when your mind’s a complete mess), chapter 2 is about hope, chapter 3 is about inevitability and the consequences of trauma, chapter 4 is about becoming an adult and growing into your own skin, etc. I think this one is about fear. How you feel it, and how you overcome it. Like, Harry takes a decision to stand up, fight, do the interview, regardless of the fact that he is scared (for his life, for that of the people he loves), and finds buried inside him a lot of the courage that he (felt) he lost, after the war. He learns to control his fear of the world by figuring out how apprehend it, through the training Giulia gives him, through learning how to kill, too. 

But, it’s also about fear in society. How the attack on Robards sets everyone on edge and how they keep going regardless. I initially wrote this chapter with the idea that it was going to be about speaking out and being brave, but obviously, fear and fighting against it is a huge part of that, too. 

Then, there’s Mia. Obviously, this fic is Harry/Ginny endgame but I do like the idea of Harry (and possibly Ginny as well) dating at least one other person, before officially tying the knot. Like, yes, Ginny is obviously coming back next chapter. She’ll probably own the second half of next chapter, if I’m honest, considering they’re obviously going to the burrow for christmas. I love Ginny, I’ve missed her and honestly, I can’t wait to bring her back. This being said, to be fair, I’ve kind of realised that this fic may actually be the first I ever write that isn’t strictly “shippy.” Like, yes, their relationship is a huge part of it (it’s a huge part of his life) and it will and was always going to be a huge part of this story but I think this fic is larger than that. It’s a result of my years-long obsession over: but what happens next? Over what “all was well” really means, in a general sense. How do they get to “nineteen years later” and beyond. But yeah, I’ve missed Ginny and I’m glad she’s on her way back to us now. 

Now, obviously. Giulia. I’m sorry. This was always going to happen. Well, almost always. I remember when I first wrote her in, she was a bit of a filler character. At the time, the thing with Mia was supposed to happen in last chapter and I actually had (have) much more backstory around her, than around Giulia. She and Harry were going to have proper conversations (will they ever, who knows?), really get to know each other. But then, Giulia came first narratively and shone through the page. I started writing her and she had this personality and life of her own and I couldn’t bring myself to curtail her. 

Now, we all know how it is: fanfics can only tolerate so many OCs. So, I had to choose between putting Mia at the forefront, or Giulia. I chose Jules. 

Then, in chapter 4, I wrote this: 

Her first lesson is to teach him how to drive the patrol car. ‘I don’t know why we use them,’ she explains, honest, and Harry vaguely wonders if he should be taking notes. ‘Reckon the Ministry saw them being used by Muggles, had to prove they could do better. They like making noise, the Ministry, don’t they? Lots of sirens and shite.’

Politely, Harry hides a chuckle behind a cough. He clearly doesn’t know yet that he doesn’t need to, that Giulia’s sarcastic sense of humour is one of the things that he’ll come to appreciate the most in this world, over the next few months. That the sound of her voice is one he’ll try to never, ever forget. That in the speech that he’ll give when he makes Head Auror, over a decade later, he’ll think of her and say: ‘Okay, let’s try to not just be sirens and shite, all right?’

This kind of tumbled out without me really thinking about it until I really looked at it and thought: fuck, why is he talking about her past tense, like that. Like “the sound of her voice is one he’ll try to never, ever forget.” Why would he forget it, though? And so, just like that, came her death sentence. For that, I apologise. It killed me too, and I cried when I wrote it in (especially when I wrote next chapter, actually, first time I ever made myself cry writing, if I’m honest) but it just needed to happen. It’s how Ginny and he get back together (I mean, obviously - is that even a spoil) because he’s grieving but she’s grown stronger and steady and she’s able to be there in a way that she wasn’t last summer. It did occur to me that god, all his mentors/father figures come to die, don’t they? But honestly, I kind of thing that his real mentor will be Robards, at the end of the day. She was just the one who allowed him to get back on his feet. 

One last note: I’ve been meaning to put this into the fic for ages but have never found the right moment to write it in. In the meantime, I’ll just say it here, because I don’t know if this has frustrated some of yous - I know it might have driven me mad. There is a logic to the Muggle/Wizard swearing/exclamations in the fic. Obviously, this is an adult fic so they swear normally, like eighteen-year-olds would in this (I decided that very early on), but also there’s “God”-s and “Merlin”-s and things like that. 

Now, I think that throughout this fic, although Harry hasn’t mentioned it yet (cause it never fucking fits anywhere) Hermione’s been having a sort of Muggle reckoning. She - in conscience - decides to start swearing/exclaiming “like a Muggle” after the war. If you notice, she only ever says “god”, never “Merlin.” Harry uses both interchangeably although he tends to use Merlin more when he thinks about wizard stuff, but God when he thinks about Muggle stuff (like when he’s with Mia). Ron only swears in “wizard” but I think he might start using Muggle expletives as well in the later chapters because of Hermione rubbing off on him. 

The fact that I even think about all that stuff is pathetic and I need to get a life. But that’s for another post, altogether. 

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you liked it :). 

[your--isgayrights]

Okay i actually have no clue on how tumblr works (hope I'm doing this right lmao) but I'm writing my first fic (I still can't really move on from orv so I decided to make my own content lol.), I really love your writing style, do you have any tips??

Hmmmm tips tips tips tips.... First of all I’m really flattered that you like my writing enough to ask me about it! I’ll try to give my best answer... I think that I used to read a lot of people’s “writing tips” but ultimately I ended up not really understanding them until I started writing a lot? Either way it’s fun to read how other authors think... It’s really cool that you’re writing your first fic and you thought to come to me... did I already say that? Okay long post under the cut.

I don’t think this will be all that helpful, but this is just things that I think about if that’s interesting!

For me a lot of writing is like struggling with motivation (I have ADHD so that’s probs why), I really have to pace myself while writing because I can’t just force myself to do it. If I go in every day and think “I have to write today I’m not doing anything so I should be writing” I can get burnt out really easily, even if I really like the thing I’m writing and know how it’s supposed to go. So one of my big things is that when I’m not thinking about writing I’m not thinking about writing. that gives my brain a break and refreshes me when I get back to my google document.

Something I’ve also struggled with having to remember is that there’s like. Never a perfect way to write. What I end up doing is thinking up ideas and fragments and sentences in my head and the very moment I think of something I like I have to write it down in my notes app. Most of my writing process ends up being like. Filling in the blanks and connecting the dots between scene fragments. 

For fics in particular I’d also just recommend rereading your favorite parts of the og work! I’m the kind of person who has a pretty good reading memory, so people may have noticed that I include a lot of little details referencing the text in my fic. Just reading the work kind of helps you remember the voices of the character and the style of the narration, and if you just like. internalize it. you can probably replicate it pretty well if you wanted to.

OKAY I say that but don’t worry too much about replicating things in the og work perfectly. I find that a lot of times when I’m writing I’m inserting a lot of personal touches and putting things that are a part of me in the work. Writing is always going to be like. an extension of your voice, no matter what you’re writing. I think that when I heard about stuff like that from authors in the past I was always like. What? I’m not writing about things that happened to me. I’m writing about grown adult men having emotional issues, silly. But there’s like a lot more nuance to writing about yourself, I guess. Like you don’t have to have like a self insert or be projecting onto a character to have yourself reflected in something you’ve written.

I’d say that like, whatever you write as your first fic is going to be lovely, but when you grow up as a writer and look back on it, you’re not going to remember who you were when you wrote it. I think that’s why a lot of people look back on their first works and are like “I can’t believe I wrote that, what was I thinking, cringe cringe cringe ugh.” Like I definitely do that sometimes, but I’ve found that the old work I’m happiest with nowadays is the stuff where I can recognize myself in it, even if I’m not in that fandom anymore or if there’s old jokes or typos I don’t remember making. 

With that being said, I’m the kind of person who always gives myself a mission statement when I’m writing. I sort of mentally go, okay, I’m writing this kind of thing, and this is why I’m writing it. It can be something like oh I’m writing this fluff piece because I love this character and wish they had a happier ending, or  oh I want to write this multi chapter fic exploring an issue touched on in the original work but I feel like with my own experiences I could expand on it more than the author did. Just something that tells me why it is important to me to write this thing when I’m writing it.

AAAH I feel like I made that sound more dramatic than it really is, that’s just how I think I guess. I’m the kind of guy where its like things need to have like MEANING to me when I do them. I’m dramatic and gay and that’s my personality I guess 😔.

Hmmm maybe it’s also my BIGGEST writing tip tho. Like kind of just thinking things through when you’re writing is pretty important. When I was first learning to write at all (talking about baby baby me here this is like sort of a side tangent sorry) I think that a lot of times I would copy phrases and developments that I had liked in things that I had read without really fully considering why I would include those things other than the fact that that was just what I thought writing was. It’s important to consider what importance every scene and sentence has to do with the flow of the story. Are they just things that are happening, or is there a reason that the audience needs to know these things? The weight of your words should have some sort of consequence as a result of you writing them. Are you telling the audience information they need to know? Is it about how the character feels? What does this say about the character? Etc.

I suppose that’s sort of my own writing style. You’ll probably notice that I don’t write a lot of descriptive prose if you read my fic. The thing about me is that I never want to write something that makes my audience question why they’re reading it, I guess. I’m sort of self conscious and think about the reading experience a lot. All of the things I choose to describe are usually so that the reader can understand where people are in the scene and what emotions they are having. There’s a lot of emphasis that I put in like. A reader’s ability to read into things, which works against me sometimes because I’m not always certain if people picked up on different things that I put a lot of thought into (the curse of being seen... sob).

ALSO use paragraph breaks. In my first fic (that I’m not going to tell anyone what is even though its on ao3 because im shy) the thing I always regret the MOST is that there are big chunky paragraphs that are hard to read through at the start. Like my eyes get lost. I mentioned I have ADHD before but even though I like. physically can’t read a big chunky paragraph I will always write them that way if left to my own devices. Paragraph breaks don’t have to just be broken up by dialogue they can be wherever you feel like doing them. You need a lot of them. This post should probably have more of them... oh my god it’s so long...

OKAY FOR REAL THOUGH IF YOU COULDN”T SLOG THROUGHT THE REST OF THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP IS RIGHT HERE: 

JUST LET YOURSELF WRITE

I have a lot of like. academic trauma, so maybe this is just me, but the reason I didn’t write fic until I was like 16 was because I was always really scared that whatever I wrote wouldn’t be good enough for some impossible standard I was setting for myself. I was always telling myself that I had certain bad writing habits or that I was terrible for never being able to focus on things for very long and all of my projects were doomed to failure before I even started. But then I wrote my first like 8 chapter fic in the summer of my junior year and I was like... oh. that wasn’t so bad. Like. It’s okay to know your limits, but you don’t really know them until you start writing. Like I wrote an 8 chapter fic, and then a few one shots, and then I tried to take on a very complicated project that ended up being over 40 chapters and I had to put it down because I just wasn’t really at the writing level to finish it. I would advise against writing fics that take so long to write that you start hating the way you wrote the first chapter, basically lol. Know how whatever you’re writing is supposed to begin and end before you start writing it.

Nowadays I always have like. plot outlines in my head when I start a fic. Like okay this needs to happen here this needs to happen here etc. I like making lists if it seems to overwhelming when I’m writing something long, just to organize my thoughts. 

OKAY I JUST TALKED A LOT. SORRY IF YOU DIDN’T WANT TO READ ALL OF THIS BUT I’M A LITTLE CHATTY IF YOU DIDN’T NOTICE.

Defo feel free to dm me if you have like questions or just want to chat about orv or whatever. I’m a lonely little man out here floating on my pile of words, and I’d love to hear what your fic is about!! 

[solalunar-eclipse]

Scars You Can’t See - Chapter 5

Chapter title: Ready to explode

Word count: about 3800 words (whoa)

Author’s Note: I think it’s about time I gave a shoutout to @teamxdark! Their comments have gotten me to start planning out some of the later chapters (and giving me a lot of inspiration), so I figured they deserved some credit!

And thank you to everyone who’s read this fic so far- every note I get is incredible and I hope you’re all enjoying the ride :)

First | Previous | Next

Sonic stared blankly at his phone screen for the fifth time this morning. The old texts and the name at the top of the messaging app blurred slightly as his eyes unfocused. He was waiting for...something. What, he wasn’t sure.

That was a lie.

Truthfully, he was hoping that the three little dots showing that someone was typing would appear like a miracle. He knew that wouldn’t happen, though. The hedgehog on the other end of the messages had turned off his phone entirely. Heck, Shadow was literally in hiding. There had been exactly one post on Chatter (which he and Tails totally hadn’t read over and over searching for hidden messages) and that was from Omega.

But chaos, how Sonic wished for just five minutes to talk to him. He hadn’t even realized before now how much he normally texted the hybrid in a day. The hero honestly just messaged whenever he saw something or found a funny joke that he thought Shadow would like. In dealing with his new absence, though, Sonic had come up with an idea to write down whatever it was he’d seen that he figured Shadow would enjoy and save it for later.

He was forced to stop this when he wrote nearly two thousand words’ worth of moments in half an hour.

Sonic cursed all the times he’d taken Shadow’s near-constant presence for granted. The hybrid had always been a punctual texter, despite Rouge’s repeated attempts to convince him that he didn’t have to answer right away. Even when the other hedgehog had been off on a mission, Sonic still had an idea of how long he needed to wait before he could start texting. But now, it could be days, weeks, or even months before he could talk to Shadow freely again.

What if you’ll never hear from him again? a nasty inner voice whispered. What if that call was the last time you got to hear his voice?

Sonic felt his stomach fall through the floor at that idea, before swallowing the sensation and shaking his head. He couldn’t doubt Team Dark like that! They were guaranteed to pull through, and kick G.U.N.’s butt in the process.

Speaking of which…

The hero was pretty angry at G.U.N., and that was actually a big deal for him. Sonic didn’t get angry, except sometimes at Eggman. Even when a bitter detractor had posted a lengthy essay on Chatter explaining exactly why Sonic was (supposedly) a terrible person, he hadn’t reacted in fury- or even close. He’d had his friends’ support, and honestly? He’d pitied the person more than anything. Anyone who was trying to tear others down had probably been hurt pretty badly themselves.

Sonic had even made a meme out of their misspelling of his name- “Sanic” was now a worldwide joke with a hilarious drawing to match.

But now, all he really wanted to do was beat someone up- some robots, some evil agents, whatever- and trash the whole organization until they were all falling over themselves to apologize. The fact that G.U.N. had dared to treat Shadow’s obviously painful past with no kindness whatsoever really got on his nerves. The hybrid had suffered a hundred times over, lost his memory, and even died to save the world, yet he still didn’t get the respect he deserved.

“Uhhh, Sonic? Is everything okay?”

The blue blur jumped, startled out of his spiraling thoughts. He heard a growling noise, and his eyes widened when he realized it was coming from him. Sonic could feel his lips curled back into a snarl and quickly straightened his face out, blinking and clearing his throat. “Yeah! Sorry, Tails…” he said, embarrassed at having been caught in that kind of state. The fox eyed him skeptically. “Really, I’m fine!”

“Are you su-”

“Yeah!” Sonic exclaimed, grinning reassuringly. No point in upsetting others with his own problems, after all. “Everything’s good here, buddy!”

“If you say so…” Tails muttered. He didn’t seem convinced, but accepted it despite this. “Anyway, what I came over to say was: we’re out of groceries- can you head out and get some? I made a list of everything we need, it’s right here!”

Ordinarily, Sonic would’ve complained loudly and with much drama about having to do something so menial as a grocery run when he was a hero, for chaos’ sake. But that wasn’t the case these days. “Sure thing!” Sonic agreed, feeling better already. With a distraction to keep his worries and negative thoughts away, he’d be back to normal in no time. “See ya soon!”

The blue blur dashed out the door- before returning a second later, a sheepish grin on his face. “Forgot the list,” he explained, rushing out again.

With the wind in his quills, it was almost too easy to forget everything that he’d been thinking about just moments before. Sonic grinned properly as he raced across fields and through side streets. This was his element, after all!  He made his way to his and Tails’ favorite grocery store, bounding over obstacles and pulling a few awesome parkour tricks he’d picked up over the years. Shadow had always gotten on their case for not supporting a more local store- this one was a big name, after all- but Sonic had--

He shook his head, walking into the building. No more thoughts like that! There was only so much ruminating on bittersweet memories a guy could do in a day.

His presence here was relatively common, so he didn’t do much more than turn a few heads as he stepped through the automatic doors into the air-conditioned halls of the large grocery store. Sonic forced himself to walk through the aisles (instead of sprinting through them and accidentally whipping half the items off the shelves in his wake). As he did so, though, he began to hear people talking. And they weren’t just talking about the latest viral video, or boring politics, or any of those things, either.

They were talking about them.

Of course, everyone would always change the subject when he walked by, chatting loudly about their dog or their kids or whatever. It was almost as though they were saying, “Don’t look at me! I didn’t say anything about your friends! I’m just here, minding my own business!” But of course none of them really had been.

He recognized that he was spiraling down the path of thinking about it again, even though there was nothing he could do. And now no matter what, the thoughts of some of his closest friends were tainted. Which totally didn’t frustrate him at all. 

It didn’t help, he thought irritably (not noticing the mild scowl that had appeared on his face), that G.U.N. was basically screaming in all the op-eds and information releases the organization could get their hands on that they weren’t in the wrong. They didn’t say that specifically, of course- that would be too obvious. Instead, they just published the same old news over and over again: Team Dark had stolen classified files and then run away. 

This had all begun to grate on Sonic’s nerves a little, particularly when pundits and newspaper writers alike began to spout wild conspiracy theories about Team Dark having been spies for ‘the enemy’- whoever that was- or that one of them had finally lost it...or even all three at once. The most frustrating, however, was when once avid supporters of the former G.U.N. agents completely disavowed them and distanced themselves from the team as much as possible. It made him want to pull a Knuckles and punch a wall- how could people turn on the team so easily?

The hero pulled himself back to reality to realize that he’d been staring at a can of soup for the past few minutes. And were those dents where his fingers had been? He put the can in his shopping cart, took a deep breath, and continued on, giving himself a little ride on the back of the cart as a treat. Normally, he’d remember his various accidents and restrain himself, but lately the hero had needed to clear his head. He deserved this.

A few minutes later, a chime on his phone let him know that Tails had sent him a message. Sonic opened it up and read the text: 

milesperhour: Sonic, I think you need to see this. Take a close look at paragraph 5. https://www.centralcitynews.com/team-dark-update

Sonic clicked the link, sighing, and began to scan the article. Another one? Really, he’d had enough of-

Oh boy. Oh wow. Okay.

They’d made a move. G.U.N. didn’t release much in the way of information- all they’d done was declare an official alert asking people to keep a lookout for Rouge, Shadow and Omega. And to tip G.U.N. off at a hotline that they’d provided for this purpose.

Sonic had learned how to read between the lines over the last few days, though, and on his second read-through, he saw what most would not. 

...are in possession of multiple classified files…

So they’d stolen more info? That must’ve been what Omega’s post was about! Sonic began to squeeze his phone hopefully. Maybe this was it, maybe soon this whole nightmare would be over!

He practically flew through the rest of the store at the thought. Team Dark would give G.U.N. what for, the organization would apologize, and then everything would be fine!

Sonic checked out in a hurry, rushing home as fast as he could. Slamming open the door, he yelled out, “Tails! Did you see- oh right, you sent me the article. But still! Things are looking up, buddy!”

Tails had a slightly lopsided grin on his face, making the hero’s heart sink. “What’s that look all about?”

“I don’t know- it’s probably nothing! After all, Team Dark can handle any situation they come up against...just, G.U.N. has a lot of resources, you know?”

Sonic’s smile returned in full force. “Sure they do, but they also owe me for saving the world, like, a million times over! Once we’ve got the Edge Gang back with us, I’ll go talk with the commander and get them to straighten everything out!”

“That sounds like corruption, Sonic…” Tails said, a wicked smirk appearing on his face.

“Dude, what?! No! I’d never-! I just meant I was gonna see if I could talk some sense into them- hey, get back here!” Sonic screeched, seeing Tails run off with the groceries...including the donut he’d bought for himself.

…

Later that afternoon, Sonic was in the middle of finally enjoying said donut after wrestling it from Tails’s (evil terrible Sonic-and-sugar-hating) claws. It was a little squished, but it was still great- he wasn’t complaining!

That was, of course, when he heard a loud, sharp knock on the door.

He jumped up and zipped over to the entry hall, pastry still in hand. Whipping open the door, a shocking sight greeted him- one that made all of his battle-honed senses immediately scream danger danger danger. Two impeccably dressed G.U.N. agents stood before him, a human and a barn owl. The human seemed pretty awkward, wearing slightly rumpled slacks and overall looking a little messy. The owl, however, despite being about the same height as the blue blur, exuded an air of steely discipline that would make everyone she faced feel about two inches tall.

Everyone except Sonic, that was. He was secure in the knowledge that his friends were not wrong, and he maintained his usual relaxed demeanor without a hitch. The hero smiled fake-pleasantly at the two agents, ignoring the fact that he had sugar glaze at the corners of his mouth and all over his glove. “Sorry, guys, I wasn't really expecting guests.” He gestured to himself as an obvious example. “Anything I can do for ya?”

He didn’t offer to let them inside, though. These agents were hunting down his friends, he was absolutely sure of that. Sonic refused to help them in any way, not when Team Dark was still out there and being threatened by their organization.

The barn owl gave him a look that nearly pierced through his very soul. “Sonic the Hedgehog. I am Agent Toya, and this is my colleague, Agent Jones. We have a few questions that we would like to ask you. Inside.” Her voice was cold and clear, with no trace of an accent.

Sonic felt a chill run down his spine, but kept his smile up regardless. “Sure thing!” he chirped, despite very much not wanting to let them in. “The living room’s right this way- make yourselves comfortable, I’ll be back there in a sec.” He honestly didn’t think he could have refused them entry without...complications.

The hero zipped over to Tails’s workshop, flinging open the door with a little more force than he’d intended. The fox jumped up in a fright when it smacked against the wall, staring at Sonic. “G.U.N. is here. Two agents.” he said quickly. The imminent sense of danger in the back of his head wouldn't leave him be, despite the fact that he was one of the most powerful people alive.

...Despite this, don’t let G.U.N. take you or anyone else anywhere. You might not come back…

...These people aren’t crazy geniuses- they’re ruthless destroyers…

“Oh, chaos.” Tails breathed. “I’ll wait nearby, okay? Then I can do something if they start getting too intense.”

Sonic nodded, before speeding back down to see the agents sitting on his couch. “Hi! So whatcha guys want?” he asked perkily, burying his thoughts for now.

“Hello to you too, Sonic.” Jones said politely. “How are you?”

The hero tugged slightly at the cuff of his glove. “Pretty good!” he lied through his grin. “Been chilling around the house for most of the day- how ‘bout you?”

“Not bad,” the human answered. “Work is work though, you know?”

“Yeah, sounds pretty rough.” Sonic said, a little unconvincingly. Before he could stop himself, he thought of all the late nights Shadow and Omega had spent working on paperwork and various odd jobs for G.U.N., and the times when Rouge had to cancel her dates with Knuckles because she was just too exhausted from work to do much of anything. His smile became slightly strained as he worked to keep his frustration on Team Dark’s behalf under wraps.

The owl gazed at him silently for a moment, having watched this whole awkward transaction with a calculating look in her eye. Then she spoke. “I’m certain you have seen the news lately.”

“Uhhh...kinda, I’m not big on newspapers, but I try to keep up, yeah! Always nice to see an article about yours truly, hah.” He played it off, deciding to act dumb for now.

Agent Jones shifted in his seat, looking cautious. “Yeah…” he said, offering up an incredibly fake smile. “I’m a bit of a fan, myself.”

Sonic knew exactly what was going on. It was almost so classic he had to laugh- the old good cop/bad cop scenario. The human was clearly trying to play the good cop, and not enjoying it either. The hedgehog had to wonder, though, was he just a better bad cop or uncomfortable because he was helping grill a hero?

Oh, right- Agent Toya was talking again. “We know that you have seen the articles published about the betrayal of Team Dark. Even if you do not read the news, one of your friends will have told you by now.”

The hedgehog’s eyes narrowed a little. “And what’s that supposed to mean? What do you want outta me?”

“You. Know. Something.” she said sharply. “That team- in particular Shadow the Hedgehog-” He tensed at her flippant use of his name, as if they weren’t hunting him down like he had legitimately gone bad. “-trust you. You are very close with them. They would not have left you with nothing.”

Sonic shook his head, trying one last time. “I don’t think so, lady. I know about as much as you- if that. It’s not like we’re besties or anything.”

Agent Jones shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know- it looks like you guys are pretty close to me. Not that that’s bad, I mean-!!” he amended rapidly, realizing his mistake. In addition to having blown his role as the ‘good cop’, he was now being stared down by a very irritated pair of green eyes. The look he was being given contrasted sharply with the grin plastered across the hero’s face, and the agent began to sweat slightly and avoid his stare.

Meanwhile, Sonic turned his attention back to Agent Toya, sitting up straight and squaring his shoulders in preparation for more. He was a fighter, after all.

It seemed that the barn owl came here ready for a fight as well, because her own eyes flashed and she straightened her G.U.N. uniform. “Sonic. We need information. Our organization has been compromised. Twice. We are in a crisis and we are ordering you to tell us what you know.”

That did it.

“As if!” the hero exclaimed, jumping to his feet. “You think I’m the kind of guy who’d sell his friends out and watch them get carted off to jail- or worse?! I don’t know as much as you think I do, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you!” He had probably blown any semblance of ignorance up now, but Sonic couldn’t find it in himself to care.

The owl agent stood as well, glaring at him. “If that is the attitude you are going to take, then we have no choice but to take you into custody.” She began to reach for the Taser on her belt at the same time as Jones grabbed the gun from his holster. Sonic’s eyes flickered between them both- the human he could take on, but he wasn’t completely sure about Toya’s skill with the Taser.

Could he get around them? Sure, but not without breaking something...and he hated to bust up his house just because a couple of agents showed up on his doorstep and pulled weapons on him. He’d handled worse odds, hadn’t he? But then he and Tails would constantly be on the run, and that was no way for a nine-year-old to live…

A loud crash resounded in the kitchen. Jones shouted and jumped up, Sonic’s head snapped around so fast he tweaked his neck, and Toya took a step backwards.

Rubbing his neck and wincing, Sonic yelled out, “Everything okay in there?”

Tails dashed into the room out of nowhere, crying out, “Sorry! Sorry! I was just working and wanted a drink- and I heard- I heard-” 

The fox then began to cry, sobbing and clinging to Sonic’s chest. “You’re not gonna take him away, are you? I need my big brother…” he sniffled. “Sonic, everything’s gonna be okay, right?”

The hero was trying his very hardest, meanwhile, to keep his jaw from hitting the floor as he watched his brother, a brave, intelligent sidekick and someone he was proud to fight beside, put on the most incredible show he’d ever seen. “I…I dunno, buddy…” he said honestly, uncertain about how to react. 

This seemed to be a pretty good move, as Tails immediately began to bawl harder and gasped, in between sobs, “Please don’t take him away from me!”

It appeared that Toya would not feel comfortable using force against Sonic (or even resuming her interrogation) when the young fox was around. Instead, she gave him a very pointed, piercing look, before declaring, “We will be back at a later date to continue this conversation.”

She stalked out the door, Jones shoving his gun back onto his belt and following sulkily behind her. As soon as she had gotten into her car and driven off, the hero sagged into the couch and let out a loud sigh. “Welp.”

Tails flew out of the room immediately afterwards, whispering a quick “Wait there and chill for a second I’ll be right back” before he exited. Once he returned, the fox crawled around on the couch next to Sonic before letting out an “Aha!” and holding up what appeared to be a tiny piece of metal.

“It’s a shame to have to do this, but…” he muttered, before vanishing with it. A couple minutes later, a very loud noise boomed from Tails’s workshop and made Sonic panic before blasting in there at top speed. 

“What was that?!” he shrieked. 

“Just destroying this camera that human agent left in our couch.” the engineer replied lightly.

“Wait- what??” Sonic gasped. “He did what?”

“I thought they’d be crazy to leave without planting one, so I checked the camera feed, and it was pretty obvious! He must be a new recruit.”

“Wait- you have a camera? In our living room?” the hero asked, feeling slightly creeped out.

Tails shrugged. “Well, I didn’t until recently, but I figured that G.U.N. would have to show up at our place eventually, so yeah.”

They both stayed there in silence for a minute, before making their way back down to the main house. 

“Well, what do we do now?” Tails wondered. 

“I dunno- you’re the smart guy, pal.” Sonic replied quickly. “I just don’t want to have to escape from them! I like running, but not away from people. Especially bad people.”

“Well...does it count as running if we’re hanging out with Knuckles?” the fox suggested hopefully.

Sonic sighed. “I guess not...it’d be cool with him, too, since Angel Island is a pretty safe place and all. I still hate the idea of hiding from them, though.”

“Maybe you won’t have to!” Tails said, trying to be cheerful. “After all, I don’t think people will buy it if G.U.N. says you’re a...traitor…” He trailed off, remembering a particularly eventful moment from their past.

“Yyyeah.” the hedgehog said dryly, having thought of the same thing. “That’s exactly why I didn’t have to ride through the streets of Central City on a piece of helicopter.”

“Let’s not think about that for now though, okay?” Sonic asked. “ I don’t like the idea of being scared all the time.”

Tails nodded in agreement. “Besides, we’ve handled them before! We can cross that bridge when we come to it anyway.”

Sonic grinned. “How about we watch some TV for now, take our minds off things?”

“Sure! But I’m definitely gonna tell Omega- or whoever calls us next- about this. They deserve to know.” the fox answered.

“Okay…” the blue blur said. He felt a little guilty that he could just turn on a movie and forget about G.U.N. for a while- Team Dark didn’t have that luxury. Quickly, though, he added, “Anything on there you’ve been dying to watch?”

Tails smiled happily, and Sonic decided that this was totally worth it. “Well, there is this one documentary…”